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MISTAKES OF [NGERSOLL. 


 [NGERSOLL’S ANSWERS. 


vo | i VOL. 2. 


COMPLETE. 


MISTAKES 


OF 


Mea RSOLL 


AS SHOWN BY 


PROF. SWING, J. MONRO GIBSON, D.D., 
W. H. RYDER, D. D., RABBI WISE, 
BROOKE HERFORD, D.D., 

AND OTHERS. 


INCLUDING INGERSOLL’S LECTURE 


ON THE 


“MISTAKES OF MOSES.’’ 


EDITED BY 


J. B. M°CLURE. 


CHICAGO: 
RHODES & McCLURE, PUBLISHERS. 
) 1880. 


Entered according toyAct of Congress, in the year 1879, by 
J. B. McCLurE & R. S. RHODES, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. Cc. 
nan a TE MEST TI TTT 


FLARED SAAS IR OAL Salas Soc nese elon 
Stereotyped and Printed 
BY 
OTraway & CoMPANY, 


DONOHUE & HENNEBERRY, 
Binders. 
FURS ae OND ale ee BE Seta dn ea 2S a 


>» 


4 


ee) in. oe OL 8 


A religious taith at present so generally pervades the 
civilized world that it seems almost amazing that any one 
should dare speak as Mr. Ingersoll does in his several lec- 
tures about the Bible. It is this singularity, no doubt, 
rather than intrinsic worth, which gives any significance 
that may attach to his words. That the Bible is in the 
least endangered is out of the question. It is too late now 
for that. ‘The words herein compiled from. good and able 
men, who have made the great Book, in its early language, 
import and history, a careful study for long years, will show 
‘how futile are Mr. Ingersoll’s efforts in parading what he 
ealls the “ Mistakes of Moses,” ete. Indeed, it would seem 
that, possibly Mr. I. is guilty of a mistaken identity, for he 
is severely accused of false assertions and misrepresentations 
concerning the real Moses. This reminds us of a “ mis- 
take” which was made on a certain occasion by the celebra- 
ted Archbishop of Dublin, the gifted author of the work so 
widely known, entitled “The Study of Words.” He was 
not in robust health at the time, and for many years had 
been apprehensive of paralysis. At a dinner in Dublin, 
given by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, his grace sat on 
the right of his hostess, the Duchess of Abercorn. In the 
midst of the dinner the company was startled by seeing the 


4eye 
ie} 


GGTLTY 


4 | ¢° \PREPACE,": > 2) eee 


- Archbishop rise from his seat, and still more Bes to hear by 
him exclaim in a dismal and sepulchral tone, “Tt has come! 
it has come! ” . : { 


“ What has come, your Grace?” eagerly cried half a dozen 
voices from different parts of the table. | 


* 


. ; ‘ | “What I have been expecting for twenty years,” solemnly 


“ ee answered the archbishop—“a stroke of paralysis. Ihave 
° been pinching myself for the last twenty minutes, and find 
myself entirely without sensation.” | 


“Pardon me, my dear archbishop,” said the duchess, ea 


looking up at him with a somewhat quizzical smile—“ par- Bi 
don me for contradicting you, but it is L that you have been 
he : Beedle pinching: We iM 
aM Messrs. Gibson, Swing, Ryder and Herford, of Chieago, a 


and Rabbi Wise, of Cincinnati, whose replies are herein 


Se given, are too well known as scholars and divines, to require 

4 i sg e ° e ° e " 
Cs any introduction to a reading public. Their words are 

q ; 2 \d , 2 mek 7 1 4 he 
hee wise and timely, and are puton record in this form to show fesse 
eae 8 


es ie the weakness of modern infidelity and the stability of Divine oa 

os Truth. eae 
J. B. McCuure. — 
OCutcaco, April 22nd, 1879. 


“At a 


Aeros 


Pror. Swine’s Rerty : 
The Lawyer vs. The Philosopher — Ingersoll’ Pros 
fessional Proclivities in Making a Part Equal to 

the Whole : 
Seven Mistakes of Moses Ten One tn ineued to 
Hebrew History . 


Swing Puts Himself in rites Solis Plice aa8 At- | 


tacks the Seventeenth Century—How it Works 
Ingersoll’s Narrowness Shuts Out God, Heaven and 
Immortality—Infidel Dogmatism 
In the World’s Great Freedom of Choice, Tageresll 
is Counted Out . Feats : : : : 


Dr. Ryprr’s Repiy - 
Ingersoll’s Uniaienee Ati bntes to Moses State- 
ments not in the Bible 
His Temporary Insanity occasioned na Holey. Ratu 
_—Intellectually Submerged in the Deluge—Dam- 
aging Blunders—lIngersoll up the coe Moun- 


tain . 

Top-heavy—Too road a Benya eed on a Too 
Warrow:Base =. * . ay thas 

Ingersoll’s Inconsistency .  , 


He Has No Poetry in His Soul; ergo, ete. 
Additional Misrepresentations 
Dr. Ryder Propounds a Question 

(5) 


Lape & si iy y) 
a f ) ‘ $ ms eyo Ye ny 
é mesa te , wiht Paw icf aM, Ral he 
i ‘ is \ y ae it A ri Ce % 
Se hd BY kee \ At > a 
ps a i ay 
4 i ea 
if co : CONTENTS. Be 
pak . 
\ t re j 


“Ingersoll Admits His Sad Need of Inspiration. : 


The Deluge and its Difficulties—Not Universal— 


Ararat originally a District (alas! Ingersoll calls 

it a High Mountain)—Other Deluges . . 
Ha Faith in Jesus Christ the Essential Factor . ‘ 
- Gandor vs. Injustice—Dr. Gibson’s Pointed Sum- 
sea TET) Mela acho Sen Geter ee 


Incerso.i’s LEcTURE, 
Entitled “Tue Misraxres or Moszs,” Q 


PAGE 


PSpea 
 Ingersoll’s “ Religion of Humanity” All paigiss Ex. a 
ee cept the Religion : . 
Le Dr. Ryder Tells a Little Story ee the Baie of Tilus- 
vad tration . : age By ie a Oe 
arias Dr. Hxrrorp’s Repry NE Oe 
Gee ae The Ingersoll Paradox Me RR 
Coe Ingersoll’s Exaggerations and False Assertions ._ 
ite Dr. Herford’s Story of Moses, with an Apt Illustra- 
re ele tion—The Germinal Power of the Pentateuch . 
aries. The Mosaic Religion of Humanity oe. ae 
i Tue JewisH Rassi’s Repry . : 4 " ‘ 
No Dr. Grson’sRerry. > salty de) 
----sSIngersoll Betrays His Ignorance . ° ‘ ° 
| Harmony of Science and Genesis . : ; ; 
The Harmony of Genesis and Science Not the 
Result. of Guess-work, but of Inspiration x 
: God a aaa igaheae La Tie rr 
Pea sie Nature . ot mere re 5 a tees : Ms 
eM rs ‘Man , : ‘ , : ‘ Sea : 
Pld Woman .. a a 
1, ean Mistakes Reweanas [ence a Death Corrected . 75 


aa Waar Distineuisoep Men Say or tHE Brste = jC 85-96 


TRE WIBRARY 


(gee OFTHE”. 


UBIVERSITY AF UALINGIR 


iS 
Yi Na yj yj 
lj 


SSS J y 
il <— 
( OA 


. \ UNAS 


MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL 


AS SHOWN BY 


PROF. SWING, | J. MONRO GIBSON, D. D., 
W. H. RYDER, D. D., RABBI WISE, 
BROOKE HERFORD, D. D., | AND OTHERS. 


PROF. SWINGS REPLY. 


ae 


Tuts discourse is not spoken regarding the man, Robert 
G. Ingersoll, but regarding the addresses which he is deliv- 
ering and is otherwise publishing. The man Ingersoll is 
said to be, in- his private life, kind, neighborly, humane, 
and in many ways an example which might be imitated 
with great profit by thousands who represent themselves as 
holding the Pagan or the Christian religion. But, were 
this author and lecturer a mean, wicked man, [ should still 
be bound to consider his thoughts apart. from the thinker 
just as we deal with Bacon’s ideas apart from his moral 
qualities, and the politics of Alexander Hamilton apart 
from the infirmities of his moral sentiments. The intel- 


(7) 


8 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


lect of such an individual as the one before us is a thinking 


machine. It makes a survey of the religious landscape. 
Objects strike it that escape you and me. His eyes are not 
those of a preacher, not. those of a bishop, nor those of an 
evangelist like Mr. Moody; not those of a moralist like 
Dymond or William Penn, nor those of Theodore Parker 
or Emerson, but they are a vision purely his own, and our 
task is limited to the inquiry what this peculiar sense dis- 
covers in our wide and varied world. 


The Lawyer vs. The Philosopher—Ingersoll’s Professional 
Proclivities in Making a Part equal to the Whole! 


We perceive at once that these addresses do not offer us 
any system of philosophy for woman, or child, or State, and 
therefore they cannot aspire to be any valuable Mentor to 
tell each young Telemachus how to live. ‘They are the 
speeches of a lawyer retained by one client of a large case. 
Men trained in a profession come by degrees into the pro- 
fession’s channel, and flow only in the one direction, and al- 
ways between the same banks. The master of a learned 
profession at last becomes its slave. He who follows faith- 
fully any calling wears at last a soul of that calling’s shape. 


You remember the death scene of the poor old schoolmas- - 


ter. He had assembled the boys and girls in the winter 
mornings and had dismissed them winter evenings after 
sundown, and had done this for fifty long years. One win- 
ter Monday he did not appear. Death had struck his old 
and feeble pulse; but, dying, his mind followed its beauti- 
ful but narrow river-bed, and his last words were: “It is 
growing dark—the school is dismissed—let the girls pass 
out first.” Very rarely does the man in the pulpit, or at 
the bar, or in statesmanship, escape this molding hand of 
his pursuit. We are all clay in the hands of that potter 


PROF. SWING’S REPLY. : gent 


which is called a pursuit. A pursuit is seldom an ocean of 
water; it is more commonly a canal. But if there be a 
class of men more modified than others in langnage and 
forms of speech, the lawyers compose such a class, for it is 
never their business to present both sides. It is their espe- 
cial duty so to arrange a part of the facts as that they shall 
seem to be the whole facts, and next to their power of pre- 
senting a cause must come their power to conceal all aspects 
unfavorable to their purpose. A philosopher must see and 
set forth at once both sides of all questions, but a lawyer 
must learn to see the one side of a case, for there is another 
man expressly employed to see the reverse of the shield. 
But few of us are philosophers. When we wish to exhibit 


something, we instantly cut off all light except that which 


will fall upon our goods. If we are to display only a yard 


of silk, we will veil the sun and move about to find the 


right position, and then light a little more gas, that the 
fields, and hills, and heavens may all withdraw, and permit 
us to see the fold of a bride’s dress. Thus all the profes- 
sions, honored by being ¢called learned, do more or less cut 


off the light from all things except the fabric that is being 


unfolded by their skillful fingers. 
Men of intense emotional power like Mr. Ingersoll, and 
men who, like him, have hearts as full of colors as a paint- 


er’s shop, are wont, beyond common, to pour their passion 


upon one object rather than diffuse it all over the world. 
These can awaken, and entertain, and shake, and unsettle, 
but then, after all is over, we all must seek for final guides 
men who are calmer and who spread gentler tints with their 
brush. I am, therefore, of the opinion that none of us 


should follow any one man, but rather all men; should seek 


that general impression, that wide-reaching common-sense, 
which knows little of ecstacy and little of despair. These 


10 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


“A ddresses ” under notice are wonderful concentrations of 
wit, and fun, and tears, and logic, but concentrations upon 
minor points. They are severe upon a little group of men, 
upon literalists and old Popes, and old monks, but they do 
not weigh and measure fully the religion of such a being as 
Jesus Christ, nor touch the ideas and actions of the human 
race away from these fading forms of human nature. 


Seven Mistakes of Moses Left out!— Injustice to Hebrew 


History. 


These addresses do injustice to the Hebrew history. A 
lawyer has a right to be one-sided and narrow when he is 
presenting the cause of his client, but when he is addressing 
a public upon a religious, or political, or social question, 
narrowness in his discourse must be considered an infirmity, 
or else an act of injustice. These speeches ‘betray either 
unconscious narrowness or willfulinjustice. But Mr. Inger- 
soll is the embodiment of sincerity, according to those who 
enjoy his acquaintance, and therefore we must conclude 
that the cast of his mind is such that it is led hither and 
thither by that narrowness which belongs no more to a high 
Calvinist than to a high infidel. If the lecture upon 
“ Moses” had been more thoughtful, it would have con- 
fessed that there were several forms of the man ‘“ Moses,”— 
the historic ‘ Moses,” the Hebrew “ Moses,” and the Calvin- 
istic “* Moses; ” and then, after this concession, he might have 
assailed the “ Calvinistic Moses.” 

But if the addresses had been broad, an igus for that 
larger audience called humanity, they would have asked us 
to mark the mistakes of the Moses of Hebrew times and of 
common history. But they did not dream of this. Stand- 
ing in the presence of one of the grandest figures of Egyp- 


® 


PROF. SWING’S REPLY. It 


tian and Hebrew antiquity, Mr. Ingersoll failed to see this 
personage, and permitted nothing to come upon his field of 
vision except those sixteenth century theologians who dis- 
torted alike the mission of Moses and of Christ, and even 
of the Almighty. To set forth the mistakes of the historic 
** Moses” would -not be any easy task. One doing this 
would be compelled to ask us to mark the blunders of a 
leader who planned freedom for slaves; who bore complain- 
ings from an ignorant people until he won the fame of unu- 
sual meekness, one who did in reality what infidels only 
have dreamed of doing—living and dying for the people; 
the mistakes of one whose ten laws are still the fundamental 
ideas of a State, of one who organized a nation which lived 
and flourished for 1,500 years; the mistakes of one who 
divested the idea of God of bestiality and began to clothe it 
with the notions of wisdom and justice, and even tenderness; 
the follies of one who established industry and education, 
and a higher form of religion, and gave the nation holding 
these virtues such an impulse that in the hour of dissolving 
it produced a Jesus Christ and the twelve Apostles; and 
thus did more in its death than Atheism could achieve in all 


_ the eons of geology. Seven mistakes of Moses left out! 


There is, it is true, a time and a place for irony, but, after 
it has done its work amid the accidental of a time or a place, 
there remains yet much to be studied by the sober intellect 
and loved by the heart which really cares for the useful and 
the true. It is essentially a small matter that some poetic 
mind, some Froissart or some Herodotus, came along per- 
haps after the reigns of David and Solomon, and gathered up 
all the truths of old Hebrew tradition, and all the legends, 
too, and wove them together, for out of such entanglements 
the essential ideas generally rise up just as noble pine trees 
at last rise up above the brambles and thickets at their base, 


12 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


and evermore stand in the full presence of rain, and air, and 
sun. Above the brambles and thorn of legend, at which 
the narrow eye may laugh, there rises up from the Mosaic 
soil a growth of moral truth that catches at last full sun- 
shine and full breeze; a growth that will long make a good 
shadow for the graves of Christian and infidel beneath. 
The errors of legend are so RE it that even a Divine 
Book may carry them. 

It will thus appear that the mera of the addresses is 
very defective. It is not a wide survey of a two-thousand- 
year period in human civilization, a period when the He- 
brews were making imperishable the good of the Egyptians 
who were dying from vices and despotism, but is only the 
ramble of a satirist having a sharp eye for defects and a most 
ready tongue. All the by-gone periods may be passed over 
in two manners. We may go forth for our laughter or for 
our pensiveness and wisdom. Juvenal saw old Rome full 
of dissolute men and women. Virgil saw it full of litera- 
ture. Tacitus found it not destitute of patriots and heroes; 
and when Juvenal found the husbands all debauchees, and 
the wives all hypocrites, there the most calm and elegant 
historians found the most excellent Agricola, and ‘found a 
wife of spotless fame in the daughter Domitia. Thus in 
the very generations in which the lampoons of Juvenal 
- found only vice, behold we see beauty and virtue in full 
bloom around the homes of Tacitus, and Agricola, and 
Pliny. Thus all the fields of human thought lie open to 


the invasion of those who wish to mock, and of those who 


wish to admire. And beyond doubt when Mr. Ingersoll 


shall have uttered his last thought over the Mistakes of 


Moses, some other form of intellect could glean in the same 
field, and leave covered with the truths of Moses, a nobler 
and larger tablet. 


PROF. SWING’S REPLY. 13: 


Swing Puts Himself in Ingersoll’s Place and Attacks the 
Seventeenth Century.—How it Works! 


Permit me now, in imitation of the style of these addresses, 
to ask you to look at the seventeenth century: Why, it all 
drips in blood! Horror upon horrors! The King of Persia 
put to death some of the Royal family and put out the eyes 
of all the rest—even the eyes of infants. Russia begins her 
cruel oppression of Poland. Prussia, the hope of Europe, 
is desolated by war, which never lifted its black cloud for 
thirty years. In this wretched century came the massacre 
of Prague and the forcible banishment of 30,000 Protestant 
families. Allowing five persons to a family, it will tlius ap- 
pear that 150,000 were driven from their homes and country. 
Further south, in France, a few years before, 700,000 Pro- 
testants had been murdered in twenty-four hours. After- 
ward came the licentious court of Louis XIV.; while over 
in England noble men and women were being beheaded or 
otherwise slain in dreadful numbers. The beautiful Queen 
Mary is beheaded just as the century begins, and Essex is 
beheaded in its full opening. And in its close France re- 
enters the scene, revokes the edict of Nantes, and sends into 
exile 800,000 of her best citizens. 

Thus dragged along the seventeenth century, as it would 
seem, bleeding, and weeping, and gasping in perpetual 


dying. Whata picture! Amazing indeed, but narrow and 


false! I have been thinking only of the “mistakes” of a 
time. Just look at that century again with a wider survey 
and a happier heart, and lo! we see in it a matchless line 
of immortal worthies. There flourished Gustavus, laying 
the foundations of our liberty; there lived Grotius, writing 
down the holiest principles of duty; there we see Galileo 


inventing the telescope, and beholding the starry sky; there 


14 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


sits Kepler finding the highest laws of astronomy; near 
these are the French preachers, Bossuet, Fenelon, and Mas- 
silon, whose fame has not been equaled; there, too, Pascal 
and Corneille. But this is not all. It is not one-third the 
splendor of that one epoch, for, cross the Channel, and 
behold you meet Shakspeare, and Lord Bacon, and Milton,. 
and Locke, and while these divine minds are composing 
their books, Cromwell is overthrowing despots, and a 
Republic springs up as by enchantment. Thus the seven- 
teenth century, which awhile ago seemed only a period that 
a kind heart might wish stricken from history, now comes 
back to us as the sublime dawn of poetry, and science, and 
eloquence, and liberty. 

The truth is we must move through the present and the 
past with both eyes wide open, and a a mind willing to 
know all and to draw a conclusion from the whole combined 
cloud of witnesses. The author of the addresses does not 
do this. He does not make a wide survey nor draw conelu- 
sions from widely scattered facts; and hence, after he has 


spoken about the horrors of the Mosaic age, or of the church 


there remains that age or that church emptying rich treas- 
ures into the ggneral civilization, purifying the barbarous 
ages, awaking the intellect, stimulating the arts, inspiring 
good works, elevating the life of the living, by setting before 


man a God and a future existence. Our Christianity has a’ 


Hebrew origin. The sermon on the Mount was begun by 
Moses. 

The eloquence of Mr. Ingersoll is much like the art of 
Hogarth or John Leech,—an acute, and witty, and interest- 
ing art, but very limited in its range. Hogarth was with- 
out a rival in his ability to picture the “ mistakes” of mar- 
riage, and of a ‘ Rake’s Progress,” the peculiarity of “ Beer 
Lane” and “Gin Lane”; and his art was legitimate in its 


ay 


PROF. SWING’S REPLY. 15 


field, but its field was narrow, and took no notice of the 
eternal beauty of things as painted by Rubens or Raphael. 
After Hogarth had said all he could see and believe about 
marriage, there stvod the holy relation in its historic great- 
ness, filling millions of homes with its peace and friend- 
ship, notwithstanding the mirth-provoking pencil. Thus 
the ideas of ‘“ Moses,” and “ Church,” and “ Heaven,” and 
“God” lie before Mr. Ingersoll to be pictured by his skill- 
ful derision, but after the artist has drawn his little Puritanic 
Hebrew and his absurd Heaven, and has painted his little 
gods, and has limned his own Papal Heaven and Hell, 
another scene opens and there untarnished are the deep 
things of right and wrong, the immortal hopes of man, and 
a Heavenly Father which cannot be placed upon a jester’s 
canvas. 

John Leech found the weak points in all English high 
and low life. The fashions, and sports, and entertainments, 
and the current politics, underwent for a generation the tor- 
ture of his pictures, his sketches, his cartoons,’ but the 
moment the laugh had ended, the homes of England, the 
happy social life of rich and poor, the learning and wisdom 
of her statesmen were back in their place just as the sun is 
in his place after a noisy thunderstorm has passed by. 


Ingersoll’s Narrowness Shuts out God, Heaven and Immor- 


tality—Infidel Dogmatism, 


This narrowness of survey which marks Mr. Ingersoll’s 
estimate of the Hebrew period and of the human Church, 
follows him in his thoughts about another life and the exist- 
ence of God. He denies that any regard whatever should 
be paid to a second life. Heaven deserves no consider- 
ation at our hands. He says in his lecture on the Gods: 
“Reason, observation and experience have taught us 

2 


bie chan Se Tae nO ka ely fo te 
\ i ah’ a U ‘ 3 
| ” 3 

16 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. | MRE is 
that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy > 
is now, and the way to be happy isto make others so. This = 
is enough for us. In this belief we are content toliveand = 
die.” Such assertions as these no broadly-reaching mind S 8A 
could make, for the broad mind, not knowing but that there | a 
may be a second life, having no positive information on that = 
point, is bound to admit all that uncertainty, and that hope aan 
is a most lawful element in that strange mingling which 
makes up the soul. As Mr. Ingersoll does not know whence bale S 
man came, so he knows not whither he goes, and therefore = 
he must himself stand and permit othersto stand inthe | 
presence of death as in the presence of a great mystery that, ee) 
at least, should silence all dogmatism of priest or infidel = 
The logic of the addresses may be fitted for the common ap 
jury, but they are too rude for man who is weeping his re 
way along b®tween birth and death. Rm 

In some better hour the lawyer forgets his petit jury and “i 
addresses the human soul. On the title page of a recent 
volume he says in substance that: “The dream ofimmor- — 
tal life has always existed in the heart of man, and will 
remain there in all its matchless charms, born not of any S 
book or creed, but out of human affection;” and being not 
born of reason and sense, he can but reject its hope; he is © 
personally above being molded in thought, or action, by © Nei ae 
such a fable of the heart. In calling such a dream a fable,  — ae 
he is guilty of that very dogmatism which he so hates in 
Calvin and Edwards, for if Calvin was too certain that he; ce 
knew God’s will, Mr. Ingersoll is too certain that heknows 
God not to exist. It often happens that the dogmatism om 
of the bigot must await its exact parallel in the dogmatism | | r 2s a 
of the atheist. The ideas of a future life and a God are 
thus in these addresses rudely set aside as though this oe a 
author had shown the real origin and destiny of the Uni- ~ + 


verse, and had found out the secret of the grave. 


a te Re ies as se San 1 ati hi aM +} 4 Po) i ie ’ ie {s i Pie Ye eR f ri 
> Z bd ,* « mn . 
4 t 


ae ne c 4 Naa ; 


ay ON ; 
ty . A se Z ‘ y an ‘ 
ee Q : La te } ' 2 
oe 4 i : ) 5 bi 
} ee bie atl 3 at ua Ps ’ r 
- 4 ve 
x id ‘ f 


{ 


PROF. SWING’S REPLY. : 17 


He would pay no attention to the idea of God. He would 
not be guilty of any worship in this life. He says: “If 
by any possibility the existence of a power superior to and 
independent of nature shall be demonstrated, there will be 
time enough to kneel. Until then let us stand erect.” 

In such language we find only a perfect overthrow of the 
method of the human soul; for the soul has never dared 
wait for any such certainty in any of the paths before it. It 
has always been compelled to build up before itself the 
largest possible motives and hopes, and then live for them 
and abide the consequences. It is wonderful that a man 
who will pluck a violet and draw delight from its tender 
color and still more delicate perfume, will sternly command 
the human race not to hold in its hands any flower of im- 
mortality, lest by chance its leaves may at last wither. If 
this idea of a future life should at last fail, which seems im- 
possible, the human heart will be all the purer and happier 
from having held all through these years a lily so sweet and 
so white. 

Logic cannot make such short work of the religious sen- 
timents. Mr. Ingersoll says: “ If you can ever find a God, 
just let me know, and I shall kneel. Until then I shall 
stand erect.” What injustice to that delicate form of rea- 
son, which has moved the world for perhaps 10,000 years! 
We do not propose to find God or a future life. What the 
world has found long since is the deep hope in a God,’and 
the measureless hope that the dying loved ones of this world 
will meet in a land that is better. Nobody has come to the 
human race to let it know that a God has been found, but 
many have come to it saying: ‘“ My dear children, let us 
trust that all this matchless universe came from a Creater, 
and that from him we also came.” So many and so holy 
were these voices, and so responsive was the heart, that upon 


18 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


this trust the living and the dying have knelt and have told : 


their longings to the Invisible. The human race has not 
been haughty. It has been willing to kneel. Its heart has 
never been stone, nor its knees brass. It has stood erect in 
battle where liberty was to be won; it has been as erect as an 
infidel when a bosom was to be bared for arrows or bullets, 
or when the neck was to be unclothed for the fatal ax, but 


in moments of hope and longing it has bent willingly in ~ 


hope and prayer. The advice of the Addresses not to kneel 
until you have reached and handled the Creator, is advice 
that civilization has always spurned, for it has woven all its 
gorgeous fabrics out of delicate probabilities,—gossamer 


threads spun by the heart. Jame, and learning, and art, — 


and happiness are all simple possibilities before each youth. 


He does not dare say, Make me sure of results, and I will ~ 
gird myself for the present. He casts himself upon the bet-_ 


ter of two possibilities, and is borne along toward an un- 
known end. Thus has the human race dealt with the inti- 


mations of religion. It has cast itself upon the better hope, — 


and, being at perfect liberty to espouse Atheism, has always 
uh ee it as being a paralysis of the soul, fi a perfect 
reversal of the common logic of society. 


In the World’s Great Freedom of Choice, Ingersoll is Coun- 


ted out! 


% 

The world has always been perfectly free to use the form 
of reasoning which Mr. Ingersoll suggests. No Westmin-. 
ster Assembly, no Calvin corapelied the human family 


from Old Egypt to Greece to think the universe had a 


Creator. The world has always been free to suppose that | 


such seasons as day and night and spring and summer, such 
creatures as the nightingale and man, such a star as the sun, 


all came from mud and water and fire, mingling of their 


PROF. SWING’S REPLY. 19 


owr accord; but the world has had no wide use for suck 
conclusions. Of its own free choice, it has avoided Atheism, 
and has never made up anywhere a civilization without dis- 
carding the idea of waiting for a demonstration, and with- 
out espousing the idea that all noble society reposes upon 
lofty hopes. Out of beautiful possibilities the soul’s gar- 
ments are woven. 

It thus appears that the Addresses are defective as guides 
for any man’s life or death. They constitute a bill of ex- 
ceptions against certain hard rulings in some local and igno- 
rant courts, but as pleadings in the great tribunal where the 
whole human family stands assembled, to get the wisest 
decisions about duty and happiness, and the possibility of 
there being a God and a second life, the possible value of a 
hope for the dying—they each and all fall far short. They 
see only the religion of some fanatic, and think it the religion 
of Jesus or of mankind. They see a God damning honest 
men, and conclude that is what is meant by Jehovah. They 
see a Heaven with some little sect in the midst of it, and 
speak as though they were what is meant by the immortality 
of man. They note the follies of the Puritans and Papists, 
and infer that if there were no religion in the world, there 
would be no bad judgment or bad passions. They fail, too, 
to mark the delicacy of man’s practical logic, which is not 
iron-like, waiting for the absolute end of all doubt, but which 
is bending and hopeful, and stands ready forever to found 
immense motives, and society, and church, and homes upon 


_ the greater and better of two probabilities that lie within this 


world of cloud. They assert the adequacy of earthly happi- 
ness as an end of being, and fail to mark that earthly hap- 
piness has always depended upon high morals, and father, 
and mother, and child, and social life, and all mental de- 
velopment have found their full meaning, until a warm and 


oS 


20 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


broad religion has shed its cheering light. The human race 
cannot find its supreme good in having a few acres of ground, 
and in seeing the grass grow, and in hearing the birds sing. 
These make some days delightful indeed, but man, with his 
retinue of art, and statesmanship, and morals, and tempta- 
tions, and virtues, and joys, and sorrows, and partings, and 
death, demands the assumption of a God, and the expecta- 
tions of a resurrection from the dust. Under such a temple 
as society, the foundation must be deep. 

To those who read or hear these addresses of Mr. Inger- 
soll, let me say: Hear them, read them if you wish, for they 
will show you what a sad caricature of Christianity was that 
which came down to us from the Dark Ages; but, having 
thus been taught by an enemy, then dismiss the laughter, 
and look at religion in the widest forms of its doctrine and 
experience. We are now warned daily not to follow parti- 
sans in politics, because they will eclipse a country by a 
little chair in office—they will make a village outweigh a 


continent. These addresses of a talented lawyer warn us 


equally against trusting the partisans in religion—the dim- 
eyed zeal which makes a Deity as small as their own hearts, 


a Bible as cold and as hard as adamant; but now, having ~ 


been taught to shun partisans in politics and in Christi- 
anity, let us learn to resist one more form of partisan—the 


partisan of an atheism and a hopeless grave. Let us at I 


times laugh with him, let us admire his acuteness, let us 
confess the honesty of his life, but for our guides or ideas 
in the world spiritual let us seek: some mountain of thought 
where the survey is broader, and tenderer, and more just, 
from which height no good lies concealed; but looking from 
which we can see the great landscape of the soul, some of 


it bathed in light, some of it lying in shadow, but all of it. 


instructive and full of impressiveness. 


ge eee > i ‘ ‘ 
See Fa 4h ors Pane ae 
ee See i S 


sy 


DR. RYDER’S REPLY. 21 


DR. RYDER’S REPLY. 


In the commencement of this review of Mr. Ingersoll’s 
lecture upon “The Mistakes of Moses,” I wish two things 
distinctly understood: First, that my controversy is not 
with the man, but with his address; and, second, that he 
has the same right to advocate his views as I have to advo- 
eate mine. On the question of religious liberty we are as 
one. 

Furthermore, I do not wonder that certain minds, having 
passed through peculiar experiences, become thoroughly 
disgusted with particular forms of theological thought.. My 
only surprise is that more are not. Such material ideas of 
the Deity as are sometimes put forth in the name of Chris- 
tianity; such offensive literalizing as is sometimes applied 
to the future life, and such thoroughly untenable positions 
as are sometimes taken as to what the Scriptures actually 
are, has long been a frnitful cause of infidelity, and will 
continue to be so as long as they receive the indorsement of 
any branch of the Christian Church. 

But intensity of conviction may degenerate into preju- 
dice, and this prejudice practically unfits one to discuss the 
subject to which it relates. From what the distinguished 
lecturer says of himself, of his determination in every ad- 
dress he makes, no matter what the topic, to denounce cer- 
tain views, and from the specimen of his work now brought 


22 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


under review, I conclude that Col. Ingersoll occupies just 
this position. 

While, then, the right to speak one’s honest thought is 
thus frankly conceded, and the provocation to employ strong 
language in reference to certain theological opinions is also 
conceded, it will be admitted by all candid minds that cer- 


tain subjects from their very nature, and from interest which © 


‘they involve, are to be treated with seriousness and fairness. 
If not so treated, the influence of the discussion is almost 
certain to be harmful. The lecture under notice, though 
nominally on the errors of a particular character in the Old 
Testament, is virtually an assault upon all revealed religion, 
and especially that contained in the Bible. 


Ingersoll’s Unfairness—Attributes to Moses Statements 
not in the Bible. 


Now, my first position is this: Whoever publicly attacks 
the sacred books of the Christian world, and attempts to 
destroy faith in them, should treat the subject fairly. I re- 
gret to say that the lecture does not seem to me so to treat 
its great theme, but is, on the contrary, a conspicuous illus- 
tration of prejudice and unfairness. No small portion of 
the lecture is unworthy areply. There is nothing to reply 
to. Of fair argument there is a lamentable lack,—no incon- 
siderable portion of the time seems to have been spent in 
knocking over a man of straw of his own manufacture. If 
his lecture be regarded simply as an entertainment, it is a 
success, for the Colonel knows how to amuse an andience as 
well as the best; but if it were intended to bea fair and 
able discussion of an important subject, it is not simply a 
failure, but a failure so obvious as to leave no room for any 
other opinion. In proof of my statement that the lecture 
does not treat the topic which it professes to discuss fairly, 
I offer these specimens as evidence: 


DR. RYDER'’S REPLY. 23 


The first specimen is: Attributing to Moses language 
and statements not to be found in any of his writings. 
Speaking of Moses, he says: ‘The gentleman who wrote it 
(Genesis) begins by telling us that God made it (the world) 
out of nothing.” And then he proceeds to ridicule the idea. 
But Moses says neither that nor anything like it. The 
lecturer thus misrepresents the very first sentence in the 
Pentateuch. What Moses says is, that “In the beginning 
God created the heavens and the earth.” What he created 
them out of, or when “in the beginning” was, he does not 
say. The simple thought is that the heavens and the earth 
were not self-evolved, but were created by the Omnipotent 
Jehovah. 

“You recollect,” he says, “that the gods came down and 
made love to the daughters of men,” etc. Where does Moses 
say that? Plenty of that kind of talk is Grecian and Roman 


mythology, but what has that to do with “The Mistakes of 


Moses?” “'They built a tower (Babel) to reach the heavens 
and climb into the abodes of the gods.” Another of the 
Colonel’s mistakes. The Tower of Babel was not built for 
any such purpose. From the frequent references of this 
kind to the gods in connection with the religion of Moses, 
it looks as if the lecturer was not aware that the Jews were 
not particularly in favor of idolatry. Again he says: 
“There is not one word in the Old Testament about woman 
except words of shame and humiliation. It did not take 
the pains to record the death of the mother of usall. I have 
no respect for any book that does not treat woman as the 
equal of man.” 

It is true that Moses does not record the death “of the 
mother of us all;” but it is also true that the first account 
of the burial of any person in the book of Genesis is that 
of a woman, Sarah, the wife of Abraham. Moses simply 


24 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


says of Adam: “The father of us all,” “And he died;” 
and in a similar summary manner are all the other men dis- 
posed of; but.when it comes to this woman Sarah, a special 
lot has to be purchased for her, and secured to the family, 
so that her remains might not be disturbed; and even now 
in remembrance of the cave of the field in which she was 
buried, a certain part of our modern cemeteries is called 
Machpelah. By the side of this fact how does the declara- 
tion look that “there is not one word in the Old Testament 
about women, except words of shame and humiliation?” 
Suppose I turn the tables upon the lecturer, and say, I have 
no respect for any book that does not treat man as the equal 
of woman. My words, if applied to the Bible, would be 
hardly less libelous than his. 


His Temporary Insanity Occasioned by Heavy Rains— 
Intellectually Submerged in the Deluge—Damaging 
Blunders—Ingersoll up the Wrong Mountain. 

My second specification is that he not only makes Moses 
say what he does not say, but he frequently misrepresents 
what he does say. Iname these particulars: First, in speak- 
ing of the flood, he gives the impression that, according to 
the Scriptural account, all the water that covered the earth 
and inundated it came ont of the clouds in the form of rain. 
He says: “And then it began to rain, and it kept on rain- 
ing until the water went twenty-nine feet over the highest 
mountains. How deep were these waters? About five and 
a half miles. How long did-it rain? Forty days. How 
much did it have to raina day? About 800 feet.” Now 
what are the facts? In the verse which precedes the one 
which says, “And the rain was upon the earth forty days and 
forty nights,”’ we have this record,—Gen., vii., iii— In the 
600th year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the 17th day of 


DR. RYDER’S REPLY. 25 


the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great 
deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” 
Why did not the lecturer mention this statement of the 
“breaking up of the fountains of the great deep,” which is 
generally supposed to refer to the upheaval or subsidance of 
some large body or bodies of land, perhaps to portions of 
this western continent, and is considered to have been the 
principal cause of the deluge? Why omit the supposed 
principal cause of the deluge, unless it was his purpose to 
make out a case without regard to the facts? 

Furthermore, what authority has he for saying that the 
ark rested on the top of a mountain seventeen thousand feet 
high, and that the water upon the earth was “five and a 
half miles deep?” Has he committed the ignorant blunder 
of confounding Agri-Dagh with the hilly district to which 
the name was formerly applied? The lofty peak that now 
bears the name of Ararat has no such designation in Bib- 
lical history, and it is the name given to it in compara-_ 
tively modern times. The Bible record is: “Fifteen cubits 
upwards did the waters prevail.” The Hebrew cubit is 
about twenty-two inches. If we may trust the conclusions 
of science, deluges have been no unusual events in the his- 
tory of this globe. Most of the land, if not all of it, no 
matter how high at present, has been at some time sub- 
merged. Whatever one may think about the accuracy of 
the narrative in reference to the building of the ark and the 
uses to which it was put, there is certainly no physical 
improbability in the statement that that part of the earth 


which was then above water was thoroughly inundated. 


Again, the gentleman makes merry over what he calls the 
“rib story,” and imagines two persons before the bar of 
God, one believing the “rib story ” and the other denying 
it. The believer of it is accepted by the Judge as belonging 


26 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


in Heaven, and the denier of it as belonging in Hell. And 
this he puts before the public as Bible doctrine—as if any 
man of common sense, whether Jew or Gentile, ever defended 
so ridiculousa theory. Asa further specimen of this unfair- 
ness, I present you this: ‘“ Do you believe the real God— 
if there is one—ever killed a man for making hair oil? 
And yet you find in the Pentateuch that God gave Moses a 
receipt for making hair oil to grease Aaron’s beard; and 
- said if anybody made the same hair oil he would be killed.” 

There could hardly be written a more complete misrepre- 
sentation and perfect caricature of the whole subject than 
this. The reference in Scripture is to an anointing oil, to be 
applied, not simply to the persons of the priests, but to the 
sacred vessels as well; and, thus anointed, they were set 
apart for what they regarded as holy uses. But if this cus- 
tom which Mr. Ingersoll seeks to hold up to ridicule, was 
simply Jewish, there would be some show or plausibility for 
talking about it as he does; but he has not even that to jus- 
tify his attack. Tor this custom of using anointing oils in 
connection with religious services, and sacred persons, and 
utensils, was common among the idolatrous nations, and 
even conspicuous among the rites of the Romans. And 


even now one often meets with the spirit of the same cus- 


tom. Ido not know whether the Colonel is a member of 
the Masonic fraternity, but he must have seen representa- 
tives of that ancient Order pour out anointing oil upon the 
corner-stone of some building which they were engaged in 


laying. Why not ridicule that, and why not also ridicule: 


the beautiful custom of that Order of dropping upon the 
uncovered coffin of a deceased member the little sprigs of 
evergreen that the brethren bear in their hands as they 
march around his open grave? It is easy to see that with 
reference to every such custom, however sacred, one who 


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DR. RYDER’S REPLY. 27 


takes the naked fact apart from its associations, may find 
abundant material for ridicule. But whether a fair-minded 
man will allow himself to treat any serious subject in that 
manner, is a question upon which there is no occasion that 
I should pronounce judgment. Mr. Ingersoll makes a sim- 
ilar blunder in what he says about the custom of sacrificing 
doves for the use of priests, since the practice did not exist 
among the Hebrews until hundreds of years after the event 
which he seeks to ridicule. 


Top-Heavy—Too Broad a Structure Reared on a Too Nar- 


row Base. 


My third specification is, that he treats a particular inter- 
pretation of the Bible as the undisputed word of God. He 
assumes that this or that is Bible doctrine because some- 
body may at some time have taught it, and then denounces 
the whole Bible as unworthy the respect of mankind. 
This feature of the address runs (through the whole of it. 
But, in this respect, candor compels me to say his method 
is that of Thomas Paine in his “Age of Reason,” and of a 
certain class, but not the better class, of so-called infidel 
writers. Mr. Paine reproved the world for believing what 
he showed to be unreasonable doctrines, and called upon 
the people to throw away their Bibles for teaching such 
sentiments; but it was Mr. Paine, and not the Bible that was 
in fault, for the doctrines which he shed so much ink to 
condemn are not taught in the Bible. Mr. Ingersoll’s 
method is precisely the same. If he wishes to hold up to 


‘the contempt of mankind certain doctrines that some sect 


may have believed, or even does believe, let him announce 
his subject, keep to his text, and go ahead; but to go from 
place to place, exhorting the people everywhere to throw 
away their Bibles, under the pretense that these representa- 


28 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


tions of his are the undisputed word of God, is simply an 
outrage upon the Christian public, and unworthy any man 
who claims to be fair-minded. 

Mr. Ingersoll’s references to the clergy disappoint me. 
He speaks of them as if they were a set of fools, and does 
not add that they are all graduates of prisons, and a pack of 
scoundrels generally. To which gentlemanly references we 
need only say, that in this slanderous speech he is guilty 
of the same offense against fairness and good breeding that 
is committed by any nominal Christian who, either through 
blindless or perversity, can see nothing good in the services 
of the distinguished infidels of history, and who, to preju- 
dice the public against them, resort to the mean subterfuge 
of misrepresenting their positions, and telling falsehoods 
about them. If any man, in an address before this com- 
munity, should treat the writings of Voltaire as shabbily as 
Mr. Ingersoll has treated the writings of Moses,—and as to 
that, the entire Bible,—the Colonel would have to go out- 
side the Psalms of David to find imprecations to express 
his contempt. His references to Andover have, of course,» 
nothing to do with “The Mistakes of Moses,” but they 
relate to an important subject, and are a pertinent illustra- 
tion of the eminent unfairness of the general address. This 
is what he says: ‘They have in Massachusetts, at a place 
called Andover, a kind of minister factory; and every Pro- 
fessor in that factory takes an oath in every five years that, 
so help him God, he will not during the next five years 
intellectually advance; and probably there is no oath he 
could easier keep. They believe the same creed they first 
taught when the foundation stone was laid,'and now, when 
they send out a minister they brand him, as hardware from 
Birmingham and Sheffield. And every man who knows 
where he was educated knows his creed, knows every argn- 
ment of his creed, every book that he has read, and just 


DR. RYDER’S REPLY. 29 


what he amounts to intellectually, and knows that he will 
shrink and shrivel and become more and more stupid day 
after day until he meets with death.” 

_ My personal sympathy with the Andover Theological 
School is not, as you may suppose, very deep and ardent., 
I respect the generosity and self-sacrifice of the five noble 
minds—one of whom was a woman—that founded the insti- 
tution in 1807, and theaid which it has given to liberal and 
exactscholarship. On the whole, Ido not like the rule to which 
Mr. Ingersoll refers. Probably many of those in charge of 
the institution do not. I understand it to be a custom con- 
tingent upon certain endowments made long ago, and which 
is observed as a matter of form. But the rule is not fairly 
open to the objection that Mr. Ingersoll makes against it. 
First, it simply relates to the theological professors, and 
does not concern the students. Second, it compels no man 
to take it who does not wish to. The University says, in 
effect, we believe in certain doctrines; we desire the instruc- 
tion of this institution to be in accordance with these ideas. 
Can you conscientiously teach them? If so, we wish you; 
if not, we do not wish you. Butif you come to us, you 
are not compelled to remain, but can go where you will, and 
when you will, and teach what you please; but so long as 
you remain in the service of this institution we expect you 
to carry out the purposes of its founders. What is there in ° 
this that is particularly narrow and dementing? But the 
Colonel repudiates his own positions. Hesays: “The com- 
mon school is the bread of life, but there should be nothing 
taught in the school except what somebody knows; any- 
thing else should not be maintained by a system of general 
taxation.” 

Ingersoll’s Inconsistency ! 


But, let us inquire, who is to decide “what somebody 
knows?” Practically, the answer is, the people, or their 


30 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


representatives, in school boards, committees, ete. They 
select the text-books, and they expect instructors whom they 
engage to follow them, for the text-books are assumed to 
embody what is true on the subjects to which they relate. 
What would the lecturer say ofa teacher in one of our publie 
schools who should to-day teach the rejected doctrine that 
the sun revolves about the earth? What, but this: turn 
him out and put some one in his place who teaches the 
truth—which, being interpreted, means, teaches according 
to the authorized text-books. Why, on the very occasion of 
the lecture itself, after the Colonel had denounced Andover 
for pledging loyalty to certain doctrines, and which act he 
characterizes as so harmful to freedom of thought, he him- 
self demands of the people whom he is addressing that they 
will never support a certain form of doctrine, nor give money 
to aid in bnilding any church in which they are, taught. 
His language is: “I would have every one who hears me 
swear that he will never contribute another dollar to build 
another church in which is taught such infamous lies.” 
Mark you, not simply a pledge for five years, but they are 
never to change their views. My friends, is there no such 
thing as consistency in belief? Is one a bigot because he 
says, This is what I believe, and this, therefore, I defend? 


Are these men to be ridiculed and assailed, and only those - 


who shirk such responsibility to be held up as patterns and 
guides? Brethren, I am not speaking of some sophomoric 


oration, but about the deliberate thought of a man who has . 


made himself famous in this line of labor, and of whom our 
townsman who gracefully introduced him said, “a man who 
does his own thinking, and who thinks before he says.” 
Now, of every such man it is safe to say, he knows that 
organization is essential to the welfare of* society, and is 
perfectly consistent with liberty of thought. The free- 
thinkers of this country are organized as well as others; 


DR. RYDER’S REPLY. 31 


and it is their right to be if they have anything to teach or 


defend. A Christian combination, against which some peo- 
ple hurl their anathemas, is simply the grouping together 
of those who have a similar mind and purpose, the better to 
do this work which they have in common. Of course there 
has been in connection with some of these denominations a 
fearful amount of bigotry. When we come to that topic we 
are quite at home. Bigotry is no friend of ours: we owe 
him no service. The denomination which this church rep- 
resents has received from the dominant sects about us a 
pretty large share of persecution and abuse. But,. for all 
that, we do not propose to follow the lecturer’s example and 
call our brethren hard names, simply because they apply 
such epithets to us. 


He Has no Poetry in His Soul; Ergo, etc. 


My fourth specification is, that he misrepresents the wri- 
tings of Moses, and, as to that, the entire Bible, by treating 
its metaphoric language as literal statements. 

Think of a man, in this age of light, speaking of the pic- 
tured representation of the Old ‘estament in this way: 
“They believed that an angel could take a lever, raise a 
window, and let out the desired quantity of moisture. I 
find out in the Psalms that he bowed the heavens and came 
down.” I wonder if the gentleman can see anything but 
mere literalism in this passage? “As the mountains round 
about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people from 
henceforth, even forever.” Like other nations, the Hebrews 
have their patriotic, descriptive, didactic, and lyrical poems 
in the same varieties as other nations; but with them, unlike 
other nations, whatever may be the form of their poetry, it 
always possesses the characteristic of religion. Even their 
patriotic songs are a part of their religion. The Jews have 
taught the world its devotional poetry. If there is to be 


3 


32 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


found anywhere conceptions of the Deity and of the universe 
more remarkable for their sublimity and grandeur than are 
met with in the sacred books of the Jews, I know not where 
to look for them. Certainly when they are compared with 
the religious poems of other countries, most nearly contem- 
poraneous, as those of Homer and Hesiod, they are so vastly 
superior as to lead to the belief that, if the poets of idola- 
trous Greece drew their inspiration from human genius and 
learning, those of Judea had a higher illumination. 


Additional Misrepresentations. 


My fifth specification is, that the representation given in 
the lecture of the Hebrews as a people, is almost wholly in- 


correct, both as to the work undertaken by them and the 


effect of that work upon mankind. 

We have no disposition to shut our eyes to the ignorance, 
cruelty and superstition of the Hebrew race in the early 
periods of their history. There was but little in them that 
gave the promise of a great nation when Moses led them 


out of Egypt. They were low in the scale of civilization. 


Many of the things done by them we cannot justify, and 
we are not required to do so. But what arrests our atten- 
tion is, that almost from the first they show a gradual im- 
provement in their condition, and finally reach that proud 
pre-eminence when Jerusalem became the Athens of its 
day. There are two points of view from which to judge of 
the early history of any people: one is, to compare it with 
that of contemporary nations, and the other is, to compare 
it with our own time. It is manifest that the former is the 
proper basis of judgment. Consider, then, as already inti- 
mated, who the people were that Moses thus led out of 


Egypt. Reflect that they were but children in intelligence, — 


and that the higher forms of thought had but little influence 
over them; and that if they were held to the law of duty, 


DR. RYDER’S REPLY. 83 


and organized into a nation, it must be by such material 
forms and simple customs as they could comprehend. Re- 
flect, furthermore, that these people had been brought up in 
the midst of idolatry, and that in leaving Egypt they did 
not get away from its influences, but that, wherever they 
went, they were assailed by it; that idolatry was almost the 
universal form of worship, and that it was a mighty task to 
educate these people in the doctrine of the one only living 
and true God, and hold them to it. Reflect, furthermore, 
that to secure this end much might then be done which, ' 
under the circumstances, would be at least excusable, that 
should not be done now. [fairness requires that we con- 
sider whether the custom originated with the Jews them- 
selves, and what was its spirit and purpose. 

Prominent mention is made in the lecture of polygamy 
in connection with the Jews, and one would infer from 
what he says that the custom of plurality of wives originated 
with them, and that it was a custom peculiar to them. 
This is his language: “Is there a woman here who believes 
in the institution of polygamy? Is there a man here who 
believes in that infamy? You say ‘no, we do not.’ Then 
you are better than your God was 4,000 years ago. Four 
thousand years ago he believed in it, taught it, and upheld 
it.” The facts appear to be these: Polygamy has existed 
from time immemorial. Even in the Homeric age of the 
Greeks it prevailed to some extent, and, though not known 
in republican Rome, it practically prevailed under the 
Empire, owing to the prevalence of divorce; but in what 
we call the Eastern nations the custom has been almost 
universal, being sanctioned by all religions, including that 
of Mohammedanism. In this regard the Hebrews, to a cer- 


tain extent, followed the prevalent custom viz: the law of 


Moses did not forbid it, but did contain many provisions 
against its worst abuses, and such as were intended to 


84 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


restrict it within narrow limits; and, as the spirit of the 
Hebrew religion advanced the civilization of the nation, 
the practice more and more fell into disuse, until it finally 
died out; and in the giimpses of Jewish life which the New 
Testament gives us, there are no traces of it discernible. 
Since the Hebrew race the world over, for some 2,000 years, 
has as much as any other people discountenanced such 
practices, though still firmly believing in Moses as the 
prophet of God, it is clear that they do not consider polyg- 
amy any part of the Jewish system, but a custom permit- 
ted for a season because so universally practiced by the 
surrounding nations. 


Doctor Ryder Propounds a Question. 


But just here comes in a question of high importance. 
If there is nothing in Judaism to exalt woman—and every 
reference to her in their sacred books is one of “ humiliation 
and shame ”’—how happens it that the Jews discarded the 
custom of polygamy some two thousand years ago, while 
the practice still prevails among the nations of the East, 
and notably in Mohammedanism, which, in so many respects, 
takes the external form of Judaism? The truth is, that great 
injustice has been done to the real religion of the Hebrews, 
by both Christians and unbelievers. We have judged it too 
exclusively by the Mosaic law, and the mere letter of it at 
that. Real Judaism is not the Old Testament, but that 
which has come out of it—the result of its growth, and the 
expansion of its inherent forces. Lopg before the advent 
of our Lord the Mosaic law had virtually given way to the 
Jewish religion, and it is that religion, the spirit of which 
in the beginning so largely came from the great law-giver 
himself that has had three thousand years of existence to 
certify its right to live, and which to-day assigns it a most 


honorable place among the religions of humanity. And in 


DR. RYDER'S PEPLY. 35 


dismissing this branch of our subject, it seems pertinent to 
inquire, where did Moses obtain his religious ideas? The 
Egyptians had reached high advancement in the arts and 
sciences in the time of Moses, but their degradation in refer- 
ence to religion is unmistakable. It is said of Moses that 
he “was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and 
was mighty in words and deeds;” and he was no doubt 
greatly aided by what he had learned from them, but it 
seems too evident to admit of discussion that he did not get 


his religious ideas from that source. Whence came they? 


But, whatever may be our answer to this question, there 
can be, it seems to me, but one opinion as to the respect 
due to the illustrious religious leader who has made upon | 
the race so profound an impression for good. 

The five specifications now before you cover the evidence 
we offer of the correctness of our general proposition, viz.: 
that the address upon “ The Mistakes of Moses,” is a con- 
spicuous illustration of prejudice and unfairness. 


Ingersoll Admits His Sad Need of Inspiration. 


Col. Ingersoll! uses this language: “ Nothing needs inspir- 
ation but a falsehood or a mistake. A fact never went into 
partnership with a miracle.” ‘A fact will fit every other 
fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether 
or not it is a fact.” Suppuse we testthisrule. How about 
good and evil, truth and error, the mysterious and the evi- 
dent, divine sovereignty and human freedom, heat and cold, 
art and asceticism, economy and benevolence, government 
and freedom, each of which is an undisputed fact, but each 
two facts that we thus group together no more fit each other 
than the centripetal and centrifugal forces, which, acting in 
opposite directions, hold the universe together? My friends, 
there is a recognizable distinction between the knowable 
and unknowable. But the line that separates the two is 


36 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


not sharply defined. The border land between them seems 
sometimes near and at other times very far away. The 
realm beyond the knowable is the realm of mystery, and 
out of it come some of the most potential forces that sway 
our lives. What we call the knowable is those things that 
ean be demonstrated—can be proved to be true by a prac- 
tical method. But consider how small a portion of our real 
life is covered by any such form of real evidence. For 
neither our affections, nor our tastes, nor our judgments, 
nor our beliefs, nor our ambitions, nor the higher expres- 
sions of our moral natures, can be thus demonstrated. 
They do not in any way depend upon the classification of 
facts in nature, but are cognizable by our consciousness, 
and are so widely operative in our daily life, that it almost 
seems as if what we call the knowable never touches us at all. 

Science has nothing to say about, or to do with, either 
morals, religion, benevolence, duty, or inspiration. The 
sources of life, the cause of thought, of affection, passion, 
hope, and love, are all incomprehensible to science, and will 
remain so till the end of time. “There is no science of the 
soul, any more than there is a prayer in mathematics.” How 
utterly, then, does one misapprehend and misstate the real 


facts of human experience, who teaches that “nothing needs 


inspiration but a falsehood, or a mistake,” and that one is to 


accept nothing as true which cannot be demonstrated. How — 


much wiser and how much better are the words of St. Au- 
gustine, when he says: “God exists more truly than he can 
be thought of; He can be thought of more truly than he 
can be spoken of.” For myself, I reverently believe that 
the Bible contains a revelation from God. I say contains 
a revelation from God, not that it is in itself such a revela- 
tion, for the Bible, as such, was not revealed. ‘The inspira- 
tion that breathes through its pages is of some of the things 
written, but not of all; the inspiration is rather of the 


DR. RYDER’S REPLY. 37 


thought, purpose, the leadings of God, than of the letter in 
which they are expressed. ‘There is, tomy mind, no appeal 
from the words of Christ once satisfied that he uttered the 
sayings which are attributed to Him in the Gospels, and 
they are, to me at least, infallibly true, and literally “the 
words of eternal life.” 


Ingersoll’s ‘‘ Religion of Humanity” All Right Except 
the Religion. 


The influence of such an address is to completely destroy 
the religious faith which the people now have, and give 
them nothing.in return. It is true Mr. Ingersoll commends 
to his hearers “ the religion of humanity.” But what does 
he mean by it? The answer is, he means simply Atheism, 
which is virtually the rejection of all religion, since it is 
the denial of the being of God himself. Now with God 
dethroned, the name religion has no further use. - What, 
then, is the religion of humanity to those who deny the 
existence of God, and leave everything either to chance or in- 
exorable law? One might infer from the assumption of these 
Atheistic teachers that free-thinkers are the only people who 
have any religion of humanity, or who practice it. The 
general impression made by the Colonel’s lecture is that 
Christians are a bad lot—mean, hypocritical, demented kind 
of folks; and that bright and progressive people, such as 
“have brains” (though it does not require a large supply 


of that article to qualify one to ridicule another person’s 


religion) and “do their own thinking,” reject all such 
absurdities as revealed religion, and are governed by some 
sort of a higher law. 

Now that this view of human nature, so complimentary 
and congenial, withal, is “ quite taking” is very likely true. 
One likes to be patted on the back in this way, and be 
ealled “ progressive,” and not hide-bound like those old 


38 MISTAKES OF. INGERSOLL. 


fogies, and stupid theological graduates, and owlish minis- 
ters, and such sort of folks. But somehow it does not seem 
to stay upon the public stomach after it is taken. For this 
*is just the kind of talk in which noisy infidels have indulged 
for the past 300 years. ‘Christianity is virtually extinct,” 
they say, “and now we are to have a new order of things.” 
But, for some reason, Christianity does not die, iand the 
world moves forward in much the old way.” 

The truth is, some things seem very well as declamation 
that utterly elude you when you attempt to embody them 
in vital forms. As theories they look well, but in practice 
they are worthless. They are as beautiful as foam and just 
as substantial. Where are the monuments of free religion? 
In the struggle for religious liberty in France I recognize 
the powerful influence of Voltaire; and an advocacy of a 
true democracy in this country, very few, if any, did more 
by their pen than Thomas Paine; but, aside from these 
general benefits to society, where are the testimonies of the 
work they wrought? What did they do for the more per- 
fect organization of society, and for the elevation and 
purity of the public morals? I repeat, where are the mon- 
uments of this free religion? Has it nothing to show inits 
own behalf but slanderous assertions? And has its most 
distinguished advocate in this country degenerated into a 
jesting scoffer? Who built the institutions of learning 
throughout the Christian world, and who supports them? 
Who organized the institutions of charity, and who sustains 
them? I repeat, this “religion of humanity,” whatever 
that may be, does well enough to talk about, but, somehow, 
when there is solid work to be done nobody wants it, and 
somehow, nobody seems to do or pay much towards sup- 
porting it. The leading universities in Germany that did 
so much forty years ago in disseminating Rationalism are 
now comparatively empty, while those of the religious 


DR. RYDER’S REPLY. 39 


schools are patronized. To-day every prominent university 
in Germany except that. in Heidelberg is controlled in the 
interests of revealed religion, and Heidelberg has but very 
few theological students left. And, if one may judge of 
the effects of teaching by the deportment of those taught, 
it will be, I think, nearly the unanimous opinion of travelers 
that they are very badly instructed, for a prominent part of 
the business of the students of that institution seems to be 
to get up quarrels with each other and with the public, and 
fight duels. The truth is, that the sober second thought of 
the thinking world has shut its “ colossal shears” upon the 
theories of Bauer, Strauss, and Renan, and no wisdom of 
man will ever reunite the dissevered fragments. 


Dr. Ryder tells a Little Story for the Sake of Illustration. 


_ How strange it is that nearly all the world should be such 
simpletons, and that human nature persists in exploding all 
these fine theories that have no real religion in them. But 
then, you know, some people are wise in their own conceits. © 
Let me relate an incident: “An eminent lawyer had in 
court a very clear case. After presenting an array of testi- 
mony, law, and precedents that he thought was unanswer- 
able, he submitted his case. To his utter astonishment, the 
Judge, who was bigotedly and dogmatically on the opposite 
side in prejudice, decided every point of the case against 
him. After he had recovered from his amazement, he arose 
and proceeded to read Blackstone and leading jurists, the 
statute law, and judicial decisions, flatly contradicting the 
decision of the Court. The Judge pompously interrupted 
him with: ‘That will do you no good; the mind of the 
court is made up; cannot change it.’ The lawyer replied: 
‘J have no expectation of changing the opinion of the 
court. Ido not question the infallibility and the infallible 
accuracy of its decision. I only want to show what consum- 


40 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL, 


mate fools Blackstone, Kent, and all jurists, our legislators, 
and all the judges, except the judge of this court, must have 
been.’ ” | 
Friends of humanity, lovers of the truth as it is in Jesus, 
can we afford to trifle with such a momentous issue as this? 


Is there nothing sacred, nothing but the mere husk of things ~ 


in which it is safe for us to placeour faith? Is there no per- 
manent joy this side the grave, and only the blackness of 
darkness beyond? Is the religion in which so many millions 
trust simply a delusion, and the God whom we adore merely 
amyth? If so, why are we in this world, and what is this 
world? What is anything for but to lure us into disap- 
pointment? | 

Nay, we believe in God, the Father everlasting, and in 
Jesus Christ, His Son. In the love which They awaken, we 
desire to live; and in the trust which They inspire, we hope 
to die. 


DR. HERFORD’S REPLY. 4] 


DR. HERFORD’S REPLY. 


(eee eee 


Att through my life I have felt a very deep sympathy 
for those who have become alienated from Christianity by 
the irrational and unworthy things often taught in its name. 
It seems such a miserable, gratuitous loss, as if there was 
not enough to make even the purest faith often dim and 
doubtful without it being made more so by the follies of 
those who should strengthen men in it! Butso itis. And 
of course one cannot expect men in that strong reaction to 
be very discriminating in what they attack. But there are 
limits! A man’is not absolved from the duty of thinking 
and speaking fairly by having come to reject the popular 
Opinions of society. Now it seems to me that this recent 
lecture of Col. Ingersoll’s overpasses all just limits. I 
frankly own its brilliant eloquence, its irresistible humor, 
and the passionate impulses of tender human sympathy 
which flash out in it. I can quite understand many being 
carried along by these. But afterward has to come the sober 
thinking and the honest questioning. What does it amount 
to? Are its positions true? Are its arguments fair? It 
seems to me that they are glaringly the opposite. The 
whole test that he applies to his subject is a mistake; the 
way in which he applies it is not even moderately just; its 
representations are one-sided; its illustrations are carica- 
ture. And the worst of all is that there is no sign even of 
any desire or attempt to be fair! 


42 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


The Ingersoll Paradox. 


The first of Col. Ingersoll’s mistakes, is in the whole point 
of view in which he places the Bible in order to make it the 
easier target for his wit. He starts by repudiating any idea 
of its having been written by God’s inspiration; and yet 
all through talks as if God were responsible for it—as if 
God had said this and threatened that—and becomes quite 
heroic in his declaration that God may damn him, but he 
won’t believe such things! ‘When once inspiration is put 
aside, such declarations are mere clap-trap! When you look 
through all this, you find that in reality he simply regards 
the Bible as the work, the ideas of men. Very well; then 
take it so, and judge it fairly in that light! Ifthe book of 
Genesis is, as Col. Ingersoll believes, the writings and the 
ideas of ancient men, then do not attack it because the ideas 
are not those of men to-day. But that is what he is con- 
stantly doing. He is very fond of saying, ‘‘The question is 
not, is it inspired, but isit true?” That sotinds very plaus- 
ible, but you know, as applied to any ancient book, it is 
simply nonsense. It is a test which you don’t apply to any 
other ancient book in the world. You do not try Homer’s — 
“Tliad ” by the. test of whether it is true. When a clay 
tablet is dug up at Nineveh, or a papyrus is found in some 
mummy-wrappings, you don’t ask, Is it true? and if not, 
throw it away. The question about all such things is not, 
“ Are they true?” but “Are they genuine relics and repre- 
sentations of the thought of the ancient world?” By-and- 
by indeed will come the question, how far any records or 
statements in such ancient writings can be taken to throw 
light on actual history—how far their statements are alle- 
gorical or poetical, or mere ancient tradition? Well and 
- good. And by all means let those questions be applied to 
Genesis; apply them just as you would to any other ancient 


‘ yiteas 
aD. HERFORD'S REPLY. 43 


writings; but in the name of common fairness don’t pick it 
to pieces by a minute verbal criticism, and a strainéd liber- 
ality which would only be justifiable on the ground of its 
being verbally inspired. That is a mistake which may be 
merely a mental confusion, but a graver one lies beyond. 


Ingersoll’s Exaggerations and False Assertions. 


Mr. Ingersoll not only applies a kind of test to the book 
of Genesis which he would not think of applying to any 
other book, but he does not even apply his own test fairly. 
He stands upon the very letter, but he constantly misrep- 
resents and twists the letter. He exaggerates, makes things 
worse than they are; if he can make a bad meaning anyhow 
he does so. He says: “The gentleman that wrote Genesis 
begins by telling us that God made the universe ont of 
nothing.” It does not say so. It simply says: “In the 
beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” A little 
further on he makes great fun of the grass being created on 
the second day, while the sun was not created till the third 
day, so that the grass was growing without having “ ever 
been touched by a gleam of light.” Yet right before him 
were these words, at the beginning of all: ‘“‘ And God said, . 
let there be light, and there was light.” Of course, the 
whole idea is that of the world’s childhood, but why strain 
a point to make it ridiculous? It is a far worse perversion 
where he says: “ You will find by reading the second chap- 
ter that God tried to palm off on Adam a beast as his help- 
meet.” Now there is absolutely no justification for such a 
representation. The whole thing is a gratuitious invention 
of his own. ‘These are small verbal matters, but they show 
the utter unscrupulousness with which those ancient tradi- 
tions are exaggerated and distorted to make better point for 
his ridicule. 

And then, even in larger things, he cannot be decently 


44 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. — 


fair, though the explaining truth may lie on the very sur- 
face. He quotes the first part of the command against mak- 
ing any graven image, and then goes off into one of its 
tirades about that being a law which was “the death of all 
art” among the Jews. Nota word about the closing part 
of the command—really the essence of it: ‘Thou shalt not 
bow down to them, nor worship them!” Why, even if it 
were as he implies, that Moses utterly prohibited all the art 
of sculpture, the making of idols being merely one part, still, 
which was of most importance to the world—that the Jews 
should have cultivated art alittle more, or that they should, 
even at the cost of art altogether, be kept from idolatry? 
But then Mr. Ingersoll is not even true in his fact. The 
command was only understood as a command against idol- 
making, not against other forms of sculpture, and the best 
proof of this is that they did have other forms of sculpture 
even in Moses’ time, and later had art of no ignoble kind. 
Even there in the wilderness we read how the sacred ark was 
by Moses’ command shadowed over by the images of two 
cherubim, with outstretched wings made of pure gold, and 
the candlestick was made with branches which were shaped 
like almonds, alternately a bud and a flower. And later, 
when Solomon built the temple, we not only read of two 
similar cherubim, but of colossal size, extending their wings 
over the shrine, but also that “he carved all the walls of the 
house round about with carved figures of cherubim and palm- 
trees and open flowers; ” while in his own palace we read of 
sculptured pillars, with pomegranate capitals, and images 
of oxen and lions, round the great brazen “laver.” 

Or, take his representation of Christians thinking of 
Heaven as a place where their happiness will be enhanced 
by seeing the tortures of the damned. Here he rises to the 
height of his most fiery indignation. And it is a horrible 
idea. But then, who holds it—who preaches it? Itis an 


ok 


* el 


o lane 


DR. HERFORD'S REPLY. 45 


idea of Heaven that was prevalent among one sect of Cliris- 
tians acentury ago. But even they have not preached it 
fora century. And yet he says, without a word of limita- 
tion, ‘This is the Christian view of Heaven,” and makes a 
powerful appeal to his hearers not to give a “dollar to any 
man to preach that falsehood.” Why, there is not a church 
in all the land where he could find a man preaching that 
to give his dollar to; no, not even if the person were only 
a stump politician, turned preacher in the slack season be- 


tween campaigns. 
And the same of his representation of the attitude of 


Christianity toward those who do not believe in the early 
traditions of Genesis. He represents Christianity as teach- 
ing that any man who does not believe the “ rib story ” will 
go to Hell, however good he was in other respects. Is that 
an honest representation? Why, even if’ all orthodoxy 
preached that, orthodoxy is not all of Christianity. Has 
Col. Ingersoll ever heard of Channing and Parker and Starr 
King? Are the bodies of the Unitarian church, the U 1i- 
versalists, the Christians, the Quakers, not worth a passing 
word? Did he not know when he put that champion joke 
about the “rib story ” that he was representing as the teach- 
ing of the churches what many entire churches, and the best 
men in all churches, never lave held, nor preached, nor 
countenanced in any way? Yet he comes rampaging into 
the field, with a whoop and a yell, brandishing his shillelah, 
defying Christianity, calling ministers “owls ” and “ idiots,” 
and swooping round as if he were the first who had found 
out a little common sense about the Bible! But after ali, 
the real matter at issue is not as to this or that exaggerated 
or unfair criticism of the Old Testament, but has it any 
real, substantial worth? It has. It gives us the origin of 
the world’s noblest religious faith; it shows us the purest 
faith of to-day in its first roots in the far-off ancient world; 


: em 


46 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


and so I think it strengthens our conviction that that faith 
is not a temporary or isolated thing that may be mistaken, 
but part of that long development of man which surely 
corresponds to the truth and fact of the universe. 


Dr. Herford’s Story of Moses, with an Apt Illustration— 
The Germinal Power of the Pentateuch. 


When I hear people treating the Pentateuch as something 
they would like to see done away, I cannot help wishing 
that it could be dug up afresh in these days of curious 
research into the past. Why, suppose that the Jews had no 
such books; and had not known anything of their origin 
except a vague tradition of some sort of migration under 
one Moses, and curiously fitting to this the Egyptian tradi- 


tion—which is, you know, that some thirteen hundred years 


before Christ a great multitude of people had gone out of 
Egypt led by an Egyptian priest, who taught them many 
things contrary to the Egyptian religion, and afterward 
changed his name to Moses. Well, supposing then these 
books of the Pentateuch should be discovered somewhere 
—why, the world would go wild overthem. What would 
it matter whether it could be settled that Moses did or did 
not write them—or that pcssibly they were really not writ- 
ten till centuries after, and only preserved what was believed 
about him at that later date—still the fact would remain 
that they take us by traditions, at any rate, so much further 
back into the past, and show us there one of the very noblest 
stories of the world;—for that is what the story of Moses 
is. Take off all the discount you will for exaggeration—I 
dare say the numbers are immensely exaggerated—suppose 
the idea of his having been led by God speaking to him to 
have been only his own intense consciousness of what was 
best, ascribed to God; suppose the idea of his having been 
helped by miracles to have been only his own reverent 


Dk. HEPFORD’S REPLY. 47 


impression, ascribing every trouble that came on Egypt, 
and every favoring circumstance to his own people, to some 
purposed and direct help from God; all that does not touch 
the essence of the story of Moses! There it stands—how 
those Hebrews through many generations had sunk into the 
Pariah and Helot class of that great rich Egyptian civiliz- 
ation; and how at last this Moses rose up, to rally them to 
a mighty effort to get right away into some other land. He 
had been somehow brought up among the Egyptians, trained 
in the sacred city, educated among the priests—an adopted 
son of Pharaoh’s danghter—but he had given it all up, 
identified himself with his down-trodden people, and at last 
won for them the liberty to go/ And they went out—out 
into the great desert waste. What does it matter that the 
tradition of their numbers got perhaps enormously exagger- 
ated? If there were only a hundredth part—thirty thousand 
instead of three millions in all—there were quite enough to 
task their leader’s fortitude to its utmost; and through those 
books we have at least very living glimpses of him, in his 
efforts to keep them from grumbling and getting disheart- 
ened; in his efforts to keep them true to his simple teach- 
ing of the one Almighty God; in his lonely hours when he 
was listening for the eternal word, and shaping his best 
thoughts which he believed came to him from God, into laws 
for his people. And there is the great fact, you know— 
however he did it—he dzd guide and lead them through that 
long migration, and at last brought them to the land from 
which their fathers had gone out long before, and bade them 
go in and possess it! And that multitude whom he led out 
of Egypt a race of slaves, servile with long oppression, at 
every difficulty talking of going back, he had in that forty 
years knit into a brave, hardy, fierce race—who did go in 
and possess the land and became the progenitors of one of 


the world’s noblest races. That is the story of Moses 
4 


48 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


—just the barest skeleton of it—taking one, the largest, 
most unmistakable features; and I say again there is no 
finer story in history. And what will you say of a man who 
will make fun of it? 
Why, what would you think of a man who would go 
around the country, making fierce fun of Abraham Lincoln, 
holding up his gaunt, lank figure to ridicule, burlesquing 
his speeches, denouncing as lies some of those quaint little 
anecdotes, and holding him up as a fool and an idiot? And 
yet that glorious work that makes Lincoln’s name dear—not 
to’ Americans only but to the lovers of freedom and of man 
in every nation—that work of his was only the modern 
counterpart of what Moses did in the morning of the world! 
But the Pentateuch is most valuable, not for the light it 
throws upon the origin of a people, but for the hght it 
throws upon the origin of ideas. In the teachings of Moses, 
in the religion of that little migrating tribe, by-and-by 
fighting for its foothold in Palestine, we have the begin- 
ings of those thoughts from which have sprung the three 
greatest, most living religions of the world—Judaism, 
Christianity and Mahommedanism. Granted, the begin- 
nings are only rude, is that any reason for making fun of 
them? What would you think of a man who should take 
one of those rude urns that they dig out of the mound build- 
er’s graves and put it side by side with some beautiful porce- 
lain of to-day, and scoff and sneer at those early dwellers on 
the earth because the best decoration they could make was 
a few rude scratches in the clay with their flint-knives? 
Already, even so far off, the idea of one Almighty God, 
that which the priests of Egypt held as a sacred mystery— 
if they did hold it—that leader of the Hebrews taught his 
‘peopie as the truth for all, and the truth to be kept ever- 
more before them. Already, too, in the old world, where 
every race shaped out its thought of God in some idol form, 


* 


DR. HERFORD’S REPLY. 49 


that leader was giving them as the second of his great com- 
mands that they should make no idol images at all to wor- 
ship. Already, too, they had that idea of a God of Right- 
eousness! ‘True, their idea of righteousness was not yet very 
high, but the best they knew they ascribed to God. Where 
in all the ancient world will you find such a description of 
Deity as that which Moses brought with him out of the solli- 
tudes of Sinai?—“ The Lord; the Lord God, merciful and 
gracious, long suffering and abundant in goodness and 
truth; keeping mercy for thousands, bearing with iniquity, 
transgression and sin, but that will by no means clear the 
guilty.” 
The Mosaic Religion of Humanity. 


Nor is this divine side of that old Hebrew religion all. 
Mr. Ingersoll is very strong on the religion of humanity. 
Indeed, that is the only real religion, he says. Well, where 
did the religion of humanity begin? Why, it began there 
—among those same old Hebrews. The religion of a truer 
thought of God and of a better thought of man went to- 
gether even in their beginnings, as they did afterward when 
they both reached their culmination together in Christ, with 
His great teaching of love to God and love to man. 

Mr. Ingersoll, however, has nothing but the bitterest 
contempt for the morality of the Pentateuch, because it is 
behind the morality of to-day! ‘See, you are better than 
your God,” he cries; “for four thousand years ago He be- 
Heved in polygamy, and you don’t!” The truth of which 
simply is that four thousand years ago polygamy existed 
among the Jews, as everywhere else on earth then, and even 
their prophets do not come to the idea of its being wrong. 
But what is there to be indignant about in that? Simply 
men—whom Mr. Ingersoll regards, in other lectures, as 
having come up from the brutes—had then got only so far 


50 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


in their ideas of marriage. But if their religion is a good 
one, what do you expect to find it doing? Altogether al- 
tering, even so early, the marriage relation, or purifying 
and elevating it? Surely this is all we can look for, and 
this we find. I know that Mr. Ingersoll says: ‘There is 
not one word about woman in the Old Testament, except 
the words of shame and humiliation.” Well, though he 
says he has read the Bible over again this year, I can only 
conclude he has read it very hurriedly and slightly, for not 
only are there such passages as that of Naomi and Ruth, 
the Shunamite woman, Hannah, the mother of Samuel, and 
that most beautiful picture at the close of the book of Prov- 
erbs of a good wife, but I think that throughout woman is 
spoken of in the Bible, not as the slave, but as the compan- 
ion and the helpmate. The “wise-hearted women” share 
the work of making that goodliest of the tents which was in 
the desert wanderings to be the tabernacle; Miriam, the sister 
of Moses, holds the place of a praphetess, and other prophet- 
esses we read of; and the whole law of marriage in the Penta- 
teuch, with its stern punishment of death for adultery, either 
on the part of man as well as woman, shows the process of 
elevation towards that higher law of one wife and one husband 
which had become universal by the time of Christ. 

Or take the slavery question again. Slavery was univer- 
sal in the ancient world. Men had not come anywhere toa 
sense of any inherent wrongfulness in it for a thousand 
years or two after the time of Moses. But mark where 
this finer humanity of the Mosaic religion comes in; it al- 
ready brings glimpses of the idea of an inalienable right to 
liberty—though not a perfect sight of it. The law of the 
Pentateuch abounds with laws about the relation of master 
and slave, which, as compared with what we know of slavery, 
é.g., among the Greeks and Romans a thousand years later, 
were simply a marvel of noble humanized thought. 


DR. HERFORD'S REPLY. 51 


And then as to the general tone and character of that 
Mosaic law. Mr. Ingersoll pooh-poohs the Ten Command- 
ments as merely what men knew before; knew all along. 
But such a law as this: “Thou shalt not have in thy bag 
divers weights, a great and a small; but thou shalt have a 
perfect and just weight—a perfect and just measure shalt 
thou have—for all that do such things, and all that do un- 
righteously, are an abomination unto the Lord thy God;” 
and this: “If aman shall steal an ox or a sheep he shall 
restore five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep; ” and 
this: ‘Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the 
stranger as for one of your own country, for I am the Lord 
your God;” and this: “Thou shalt not oppress an hired 
servant that is poor and needy—whether he be of thy breth- 
" ren, or of the strangers that are in the land; at his day thou 
shalt give him his hire; neither shall the sun go down upon 
it, for he is poor and setteth his heart upon it.” Thereis a 
good deal of the religion of humanity about these, isn’t 
there? | 

And other laws come in here and there with such a kind 
consideration for poverty and need. When a man har- 
vested he must not reap the corners of his field, nor gather 
up the gleanings, and if he forgot a sheaf and left it.in the 
field he must not go again and fetch it. ‘Thou shalt leave 
them for the poorand the stranger.” Andthis: “Whena 
man hath taken a new wife he shall not go out to war 
neither shall he be charged with any business; but he shall 
be free at home one year and shall cheer up his wife whom 
he hath taken.” And even in regard to war—in which cer- 
tainly they were fierce enough—what a gleam of kindness 
comes in in that command that when they were besieging a 
city they must not cut down the fruit trees about it for 
their war purposes, but only trees that they knew were not 
for fruit. Why, I might go on for an hour quoting these 


52 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


more merciful laws and showing you the large, grand 
thoughts of duty that pervade that whole system which the 
Jews believed had been given to them by Moses. 

But there is nothing really to fear. For the moment 
many may be led to throw the Bible away, and to give up 
religion as the weak nonsense he so scornfully proclaims it. 
Religion will abide in the heart of man. And the Bible 
will stand because in it we have the accumulated utterance 
of religion in its best beginnings and along its noblest line 


of development. 


THE JEWISH RABBIS REPLY. 53 


THE JEWISH RABBIS REPLY. 


od 


WE need not pray for Col. Robert Ingersoll’s soul, for he 
says he has none; and in this instance we are bound to be- 
lieve him, as he is judge, jury and witness in the case; and 
there may be men without souls, as there are some without 
conscience, others without reason, and quite a number with- 
out principle. The first man of whom the Bible says that 
he prayed, was Abraham. He prayed for Abimelech. But 
Col. Ingersoll, we suspect, is not smitten with that disease. 
He prayed for the wicked people of Sodom and Gomorrah, 
to which class belongs no American citizen, of course, as 
“ Mitchell’s Geography” substantially proves. Jacob prayed 
when his brother Esau approached him with an armed force; 
and the Colonel has come to us unarmed, and without any 
force except a few harmless agents of the Boston Lecture 
Bureau, who take the money, show the show, and depart in 
peace. Moses prayed for his sister Miriam when she was 
leprous, but Mr. Ingersoll is no woman, and his excellent 
exterior betokens no leprosy. Joshua prayed to make the 
sun and moon stand still, but Mr. Ingersoll is neither the 
greater nor the lesser light, and to the best of our knowledge 
nobody wants him to stand still at any place. 

Speaking of imagination, it reminds me that Col. Inger- 
soll said he could not imagine the existence of a God. Im- 
agine God! Any professor of philosophy would faint if he 
was told that illogical expression. How can God be im- 


b4 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


agined? Perhaps one of Mr. Ingersoll’s manufactured gods 
could be imagined in a disorderly imagination, as only phys- 
ical objects of nature or combinations thereof could be im- 
agined—nothing else. What kind of a god would that be 
which could be submitted to the imagination of a man with- 
out asoul? It must be the miniature or pocket edition of 
an idol, made by man, such as Col. Ingersoll purchases and 
exhibits to amuse tall babies. It must be that sort of far- 
cical gods which he describes in his burlesques. He is not 
the first quack who would not take his own medicines, 
although he is certainly among reasoners the first who would 
imagine Deity, for none tries to imagine that which reason 
only can grasp; none will permit himse.f to be led astray 
by imagination where pure reflection only can reach the 
aim. 

The perversion of ideas springs from a mistake about 
Moses. A god or gods have been fabricated at the expense 
of Moses, until each little priest had his own snug little god 
that could be used as the Crusader’s emblem or the license 
of the auto-da-fe, to massacre and glut in human gore, or 
the frail woman’s last resort of love to make honest men 
out of rogues, pure souls out of the dregs of hell. The god 
or gods variously depicted, miscellaneously described, and 
promiscuously applied become objects of imagination, hence 
also of the farce. The mistake is that Moses was charged 
with all the follies of theological jugglers and sophistical 
bummers. The God whom Moses taught is emphatically 
the God whom no man ean see and live,—the Great I Am, 
who is the I, the Ego, the Subject of the Universe, the law, 
the life, the love and the intellect of the cosmos, the Eternal 
Jehovah, essence itself, and the absolute substance, in whom 
all things are as all objects of a man’s tender love are in his 
soul, of whom all things came and into whom all return. 
This is not a God fabricated by man, hence He could not 


THE JEWISH RABBI’S REPLY. 59 


be :magined by man, as no man can imagine a bemg supe- 
rior to himself. This is the God taught by Moses; the other 
gods may be subjected to farce and ribaldry, while the true — 
Deity is too sublime even for the pyrotechnical displays of 
Mr. Ingersoll’s disentangled humor. It is a mistake about 
Moses which feeds his boiler to tweedle the rusted think- 
apparatus of twaddlers. The God of Moses is too great for 
Mr. Ingersoll; he only deals in gods which can be imag- 
ined, and in speaking of mistakes of Moses he reverently 
passes by the God of Moses. The man is not as bad as his 


- reputation. 


I maintain that Col. Robert Ingersoll is not half as bad 
as his reputation. The man was persecuted by his country- 
men, was defeated in his political aspirations by church- 
members, and thinks the Presbyterians have done it. He 
is aman of prominent talents, belonging to the better class; 
all on account of the Presbyterians, he was teased, perse- 
cuted, and wounded in his pride, and so he became a public 
lecturer. But business is business; if one wants to make 
money he must know how. He could imagine that people 
go to the circus to see the clown, to the theater to laugh 
over the comedian. People want fun to be amused, alcohol 
to force the blood to the brain, to fill up the vacuum. He 
could see that earnest men who reason on principles would 
not take with the masses. Aware of his own talents as a 
humorist and an orator, of the scarcity of humorists in this 
country, and the plenitude of slang, low comedy, and uncul- 
tivated taste, he could only choose the career which he did 
choose—a career of ribaldry, to laugh over everything holy, 
to sneer alike at human follies, frailties, virtue and piety; 
and as a business man he has chosen well—he makes plenty 
of money and hurts nobody. A moral effect he will never 


have upon anybody, because there is no moral force in his 


burlesque. He is no Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, no 


06 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


Voltaire, Strauss, Feuerbach, or even a Heinrich Heine, 
because he lacks the research, the erudition, the systematical 
learning, and the moral backbone of either of them. He 
wili not set [tome on fire in order to sing from his balcony the 
destruction of Troy; he lacks the fire and the torch. It is 
all pyrotechnical ribaldry, which sweeps away many a con- 
sumptive superstition: and laughs many a prejudice out of 
existence; but truth takes care of itself. Let the man 
alone; he is better than his reputation. 

You think, perhaps, I ought to be very angry, because 
the gentleman spoke of the mistakes of Moses, and ridiculed 
the great lawgiver of the Jews. Let me tell you first, any- 
thing over which you laugh leaves no particular impression 
behind. That which goes not though the avenues of reason 
or the depth of the moral sentiment in a short time proves 
effectless. Scorn is a terrible weapon to achieve moment- 
ary success, but it is worse than worthless after a second 
sober thought or a healthy action of the feelings. Then let 
me say, the theology of Moses is certainly beyond the reach 
of Col. Ingersoll, for he is no reasoner; he can spit, but he 
could not think with philosophical minds. He never 
studied through or even read any of the philosophical 
systems of Germany, England, or France; nor has he the 
ability todo it. He is no naturalist of any description, has 
never troubled himself about any specialty thereof, and so 
he talks about matters and things in general as is the 
American custom, what the Germans call Wurst-philosophie, 
good enough as jokes or for beer-house reasonings. When 
he speaks of the infinite he becomes too ludicrous for any- 
thing, especially for men of thought to make anything out 
of it. He will not upset the theology of Moses. 

The law of Moses is also secured against the Colonel’s 
possible attacks. He will commence no trouble with his 
Blackstone or Hugo Grotius, or the other writers on law 


THE JEWISH RABBI'’S REPLY. 57 


who maintain that all law rests upon the Mosaic legisla- 
Lion. 

Thirty-five hundred years of history, and the common 
consent of the civilized world at this end of the nineteenth 
century, are a little too much for any man to upset. He 
says he could write a better Decalogue than Moses did, but 
that is said only—he is not going to do it; he will not even 
add a category of law to the ten. 

Well, then, if he is not the man to attack successfully the 
theology or jurisprudence of Moses, I have no cause to ob- 
ject to his lectures. He ridicules Bible stories, but that 
concerns literalists only, not us. If all the stories of the 
Pentateuch be ridiculed, denied, or otherwise disposed of, it 


. does not change an iota in the jurisprudence or theology of 


Moses. Let the literalists take up that part; it does not 
concern us so very much. — 

Here, again, is a point which makes me feel bad and badly 
disposed to the eloquent humorist. Why does he continu- 
ally repeat that which others have said often before him; 
why does he not hit upon something original? He re- 
hearses old rags in new shoddy, and that is unworthy of a 
man who has any pride about him. He does sometimes 
worse than that; he ignores his opponents, which no honest 
man must do. He speaks a long yarn about the history of 
creation, always assuming an air of originality, without 
having the honesty of mentioning even Dr. J. W. Dawson’s 
work, “The Origin of the World,” which upsets his whole 
Benda. It is dishonest to Hake people believe that a 
thing said is indisputable, when it has been completely 
upset. 

He appeals to the apotheosis of labor to impeach Moses, 
because it said in the Genesis that God cursed man. “In 
the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread;” and labor is a 
blessmg to man. Did all Socialists clap hands? If not, 


58 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


some must have thought this is the language of a dema- 
gogue, who is either a hypocrite or a self-deluded man. La- 
bor and hard labor are two different things, and the “sweat 
of thy brow” points to hard labor, which rests like a curse 
upon the poor man, and is the severest punishment imposed 
on the criminal condemned to hard labor. 


He talks about the creation of woman like an ignorant — 


man who has not the remotest idea of the difficulties among 
biologists, considering the differentiation of man and the 
origin of sexes. So he talks about the littleness of the ark 
and smites Charles Darwin in the face, instead of saying 
this proves Darwin’s theory on the origin of species. He 
scoffs at the God who destroyed His own children and 
undertakes to teach the Colonel of Peoria how he should 
educate his. It all depends upon what kind of children one 
wishes to bring up. Usually every parent brings up his own 
kind. God wanted them to bring up God-like children, and 
when they would not do it, he got them out of the way in 
preference to destroying human freedom or perpetuating 
wickedness. If it is only to bring up such children as Rob- 
ert Ingersoll, of Peoria, IlI., no such stringency is necessary. 
Musquashes grow spontaneously in abundance. Then he 
speaks about 600 pigeons a day for three priests, and does 
not know that there were no pigeons in the wilderness, and 
the Mosaic sacrificial polity was not introduced till Joshua 
had taken the Land of Canaan, and then there were more 
priests than there are to-day humorists in America, for 
Joshua gave them quite a number of cities, and I would 
not be astonished if those American humorists could eat 
more pigeons than they can do good in this world. 

But what is the use to speak of the mistakes of Moses? 
Speak of the mistakes about Moses. Did Moses write the 
Genesis? Says Col. Ingersoll, “I do not know;” and he 
does not know a great many other things. Did Moses write 


e 


4 


THE JEWISH RABBIS REPLY. 59 


the historical portions of the Pentateuch? Says the Illinois 
Colonel again, “I do not know.” If he has written all that, 
did the translators and commentators which the Colonel 
read represent correctly the ideas of Moses? “ Do n’t know,” 
says the Colonel. If those writers do represent the matter 
correctly, have those points which the Colonel ridicules 
_never been discussed and refuted? “Don’t know,” says the 
Colonel; and decent men must not curse; still they are 
permitted to say, “ Why do you talk of matters of which you 
know so preciously little? That is all excusable, however, 
In this case. The humorous and eloquent gentleman is out 
on a lecture tour, and wants to succeed. This can be done 
by reckless ribaldry only. It makes no difference whether 
Hell or gods, Devil or Moses, Pope or Presbyterian church 
anything that will pay must be pressed into the service. 
The Colonel’s field is small; he has no great choice of sub- 
jects, and he must take the first best to ridicule it and 
make it pay. He has that particular talent, and could not 
do the same work in another field. Tle cannot criticise 
Aristotle and Emanuel Kant and make it pay, because he 
cannot read them. He cannot ridicule Carlyle or Stuart 
Mill, because he cannot understand them. So he picks up 
some small stories which the children know, and dishes them 
up in his own humoristic way for the amusement of big 
babies. The man understands his business to the T. I 
tell you, he is not as bad as his reputation. I beg a thou- 
sand pardons of Col. Robert Ingersoll if I have wronged 
him. I did not mean to make fun of him any way. 


THE UBRART. 
Pea OTHE oe 
WnIVERSITY AF WKINOIS 


Zep \\\ \\\\\ 


[ Photographed by Mosher.] 


DR. GIBSON’S REPLY, 61 


DR. GIBSON’S REPLY.* 


Unuaprrizy, the attention of Bible students has been al- 
most exclusively directed to certain difficulties. These dif- 
ficulties all arise, as it seems to me, from three sources, and 
the Bible is not to blame for any of them. First source: 
treating the passage as if it were history, whereas it is apoc- 
alypse. Second source: taking it as intended to teach sci- 
ence, especially astronomical and geological science. Third 
source of difficulty: the mistakes of translators. For exam- 
ple, the unfortunate word firmament continually comes to 
the front as one of the “ mistakes of Moses.” Strange that 
a Latin word should be a mistake of Moses! Did Moses 
know Latin? Did he ever write the letters f, i, r, m, etc.? 
Not only is the word “firmament” not in the Hebrew 
Bible, but it does not represent the Hebrew word at all. 
The word firmament means something strong, solid. The 
Hebrew word for which it is an unfortunate translation, 
signifies something that is very thin, extended, spread out; 
just the best word that could be chosen to signify the at- 
mosphere. 

Then there is the word “whales,” that Professor Huxley 
made so merry over a year ago. But the Hebrew does not 
say whales. The Hebrew word refers to great sea monsters, 
and is just the very best word the Hebrew language affords 
to describe such animals as the plesiosaurus and ichthyo- 
saurus and other creatures that abounded in the time prob- 

*Portions of this reply recently apneared in the daily press signed ‘‘CANDOR;” 


other portions were selected by the Editor from his new work, ust published by 
Randolph & Uo., New York, entitied ''The Ages Befure Moses,” 


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62 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


ably referred to there. Let us only guard against these 
three sources of error, and we shall not find many diffi- 
culties. If we would only avoid the mistakes of Moses’ 
critics, we would not show our ignorance by talking about 
the mistakes of Moses. 

We have said that almost everybody knows about the 
difficulties, but how few are there comparatively that know 
about the wonderful harmonies? So much is said and writ- 
ten about the difficulties, that many have the idea that the 
narrative is full of difficulties—nothing but difficulties in it 
—nothing that agrees with science as we know it now; 
whereas, when we look at it, we find the correspondencies 
most wonderful all the way through. Let us look at a few 
of them. And first, the absence of dates. The fact is very 
noteworthy that there is such abundance of space left for the 
long periods, not till quite recently demanded by science. 
And this does not depend on any theory of day-periods; for 
those who still hold to the literal days, find all the room re- 
quired before the first day is mentioned. Not six thousand 
years ago, but “in the beginning.” How grand and how 
true in its vagueness. 

Another negative characteristic worth noticing here is the 
absence of details where none are needed. For example, 
there is almost nothing said in detail about the heavens. 
What is said about the heavens in addition to the bare fact . 
of creation, is only in reference to the earth, as, for exam- 
ple, when the sun and moon are treated of, not as separate 
worlds, but only in their relation to this earth as giving. 
light to it and affording measurements of time. There is 
no attempt to drag in the spectroscope! 


Ingersoll Betrays His Ignorance. 


A certain infidel lately seemed to think he had made a 
point against the Bible by remarking that the author of it 


eo, --_ 


DR. GIBSON’S REPLY. 63 


had compressed the astronomy of the universe into five 
words. Just think of the ignorance this betrays. It pro- 
ceeds on the assumption that the author of this apocalypse 
intended to teach the world the astronomy of the universe; 
and then, of course, it would have been avery foolish thing 
for him to discuss the whole subject in five words. Whereas, 
in this very reticence we have a note of truth. If this work 
had been the work of some mere cosmogonist, some theo- 
rist as to the origin of the universe, he would have been sure 
to have given us a great deal of information about the stars. 
But a prophet of the Lord has nothing to do with astrono- 
my as such. All that he has to do with the stars is to make 
it clear that the most distant orbs of light are included in 
the domain of the Great Supreme, and this he can do as well 
in five words as in five thousand; and so, wisely avoiding 
all detail, he simply says, ‘‘ He made the stars also.” There 
was danger that men might suppose some power resident 
in these distant stars distinct from the power that ruled the 
earth. He would have them to understand that the same 
God that rules over this little earth, rules to the uttermost 
bounds of the great universe. And this great truth he lays 
on immovable foundations by the sublimely simple words, 
“‘He made the stars also.” But passing from that which 
is merely negative, see how many positive harmonies there 
are. 
Harmony of Science and Genesis. 

First, there is the fact of a beginning. The old infidel 
objection used to be that ‘all things have continued as they 
were from the beginning of the creation.” Nobody pre- 
tends to take that position now that science points so clearly 
to beginnings of everything. You can trace back man to 
his beginning in the geological cycles. You can trace back 
mammals to their beginning; birds, fishes, insects to their 
beginnings; vegetation to its beginning; rocks to their 

5 


64 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


beginning. The general fact of a genesis is immovably 
established by science. 

Secondly, “The heavens and the earth.” Note the order 
Though almost nothing is said about the heavens, yet what 
is said is not at all in conflict with what we now know about 
them.’ We know now that the earth is not the center of 
the universe. Look forward to Genesis iv. 2, and you will 
find the transition to the reverse order—quite appropriate 
there, as we shall see in the next lecture; but here, where 
the genesis of all things, the origin of the universe, is the 
subject, it is not the earth and the heavens, but “in the 
beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” 

Thirdly, there is the original chaos. “ The earth was 
without form and void.” ‘Turn to the early pages of .any 
good modern scientific book, that attempts to set forth the 
genesis of the earth from a scientific standpoint, and you 
will find just this condition described. Observe, too; in 
passing, how carefully the statement is limited to the earth. 
The universe was not chaotic then. ‘ 

Fourthly, the work of creation is not a simultaneous, but 
an extended one. If the author had been guessing or 
theorizing, he would have been much more likely to hit on 
the idea of simultaneous, than successive creation. Butthe 
idea of successive creation is now proved by science to be 
true. 

Fifthly, there is a progressive development, and yet not 
a continuous progression without any drawbacks. There 
are evenings and mornings; just what. science tells us of 
the ages of the past: Here it is worth while perhaps to 
notice the careful use of the word “ created.” An objec- 
tion has been made to the want of continuity in the so-called 
orthodox doctrine of creation, the orthodox doctrine being 
supposed to be that of fresh creation at every point. But 


the Bible is not responsible for many “fresh ereations.” — 


DR. GIBSON’S REPLY. 65 


The word “created ” is only used three times in the record. 
First, as applied to the original creation of the universe, 
possibly in the most embryonic state. “In the beginning 
God created the heavens and the earth.” Next, in connec- 
tion with the introduction of life (v. 2), and last, in refer- 
ence to the creation of man (v. 27). In no other place is 
anything said about direct creation. It is rather making, 
appointing, ordering, saying “ Let there be.” “Let the 
waters bring forth,” etc. Now, is it not a significant fact 
that these three points where, and where alone, the idea of 
absolute creation is introduced, are just the three points at 
which the great apostles of continuity find it impossible to 
make their connections? You will not find any one that is 
able to show any other origin for the spirit of man than the 
Creator Himself. You cannot find any one that is able te 
show any other origin of animal life than the Creator Him- 
self. ‘There have been very strenuous efforts made a great 
many times to show that the living may originate from the 
not-living; but all these efforts have failed. And the origin 
of matter is just as mysterious as the origin of life. No 
other origin can be even conceived of the primal matter of 
_ the universe than the fiat of the great Creator. Thus we 
find the word “creation” used just at the times when 
modern science tells us it is most appropriate. 

Sixthly, the progression is from the lower to the higher. 
An inventor would have been much more likely to guess 
that man was created first, and afterward the other creatures 
subordinate to him. But the record begins at the bottom 
of the scale and goes up, step by step, to the top: again, 
just what geology tells us. All these are great general 
correspondencies; but we might, 

Seventhly, go into details and find harmonies even there, 
all the way through. Take the fact of light appearing on 
the first day. The Hebrew word for “ light ” is wide enough 


66 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


to cover the associated phenomena of heat and electricity, 
and are not these the primal forces of the universe? Again, 
it used to be a standard difficulty with sceptics that light 
was said to exist before the sun was visible from the earth. 
Science here has come to the rescue; and who doubts it now? 
It is very interesting to see a distinguished geologist like 
Dana using this very fact that light is said to have existed 


before the sun shone upon the earth as a proof of the divine © 


origin of this document, on the ground that no one would 
have guessed what must have seemed so unlikely then. So 
much for the progress coward the Bible which science has 
made since the day when a sceptical writer said of the 
Mosaic narrative, “ It would still be correct enough in great 
principles were it not for one individual oversight and one 
unlucky blunder! ”—the oversight being the solid firmament 
(whose oversight?), and the blunder, light apart from the 
sun (whose blunder’). . 

I have spoken already about the words “created” and 
“made,” in relation to the discriminating use of them. 
This word ragia, too, how admirable it is to express the 
tenuity of our atmosphere, especially as contrasted with the 
clumsy words used by the enlightened Greeks (stereoma) 
the noble Romans (firmamentum), and even by learned 
Englishmen of the nineteenth century (firmament)! And 
not to dwell on mere words, as we well might, look at the 
general order of creation: vegetation before animal life, 
birds and fishes before mammals, and all the lower animals 
before man. Is not that just the order you find in geology? 
More particularly, while man is last he is not created on a 
separate day. He comes in on the sixth day along with the 
higher animals, yet not in the beginning, but toward the 
close of the period. Again, just what geology tells us. 


DR. GIBSON’S REPLY. 67 


The Harmony of Genesis and Science, not the Result of 
Guess Work, but of Inspiration. 


These are only some of the many wonderful harmonies 
between this old revelation and modern science. I would 
like to see the doctrine of chances applied to this problem, 
to determine what probability there would be of a mere 
guesser or inventor hitting upon so many things that cor- 
‘respond with what modern science reveals. I don’t believe 
there would be one chance in a million! Is it not far 
harder for a sensible man to believe that this wonderful 
apocalypse is the fruit of ignorance and guess-work, than 
that it is the product of inspiration? It is simply absurd to 
imagine that an ignorant man could have guessed so hap- 
pily. Nay, more. Let any of the scientific men of to-day 
set themselves down to write out a history of creation in a 
space no larger than that occupied by the first chapter of 
Genesis and I do not believe they could improve onit at all. 
And if they did succeed in producing anything that would 
pass for the present, in all probability in ten years it would 
be out of date. Our apocalypse of creation is not only bet- 
ter than could be expected of an uninspired man in the 
days of the world’s ignorance, but it is better than Tyndall, 
or Huxley, or Haeckel could do yet. If they think not, let 
them take a single sheet of paper and try! 

....-Itisof great importance to remember that the sym- 
bolism attaches to the form, and not to the substance of the 
history. To call this whole story of the Fall a mere alle- 
gory, is to take away from it all historical reality. Let us 
distinguish carefully between the reality of the history, 
which is a very important thing, and the literality of it, 
which is of minor importance. It is very unfortunate that 
so much time is often spent upon the mere letter, regardless 
of the warning of the great apostle: “The letter killeth, 


68 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


but the spirit giveth life. This accounts for nine-tenths of 
the difficulties people have about it. Suppose a person, 
seeing a cocoanut for the first time, and being told it was 
good for food, should spend all his time gnawing away at 
the shell, and never get at the kernel. No wonder of his 
verdict should be, it is not fit to eat. So you will find that 
most of the people who have insuperable difficulties with 
the Bible are those who are busying themselves all the time 
about the shell and never get hold of the kernel. If they 
could only seize the kernel they would so readily see the 
beauty and enjoy the taste, and find the use of it; and then, 
perhaps, they would begin to see some beauty and some 
usefulness in the shell too. “The letter killeth, but the 
Spirit giveth life.” 

A very good illustration of this is found in the fifteenth 
verse of the third chapter, where we read about “ the seed 
of the woman bruising the head of the serpent.” The liter- 
alists get nothing more out of it than a declaration that in 
time to come serpents will annoy the descendants of Eve by 
biting at their heels, and on the other hand, the descendants 
of Eve will destroy serpents by crushing their heads! The 
mere shell of the thing manifestly. The reality, as pictured 
there, is of a great conflict to go on throughout all these 
ages of development; a great conflict between the forces of 
good on the one hand, and the forces of evil on the other. 
Of this conflict the issue is not doubtful. There is to be 
serious trouble all the while from the forces of evil, but in 
the end these forces will be crushed. There is One coming 
—a descendant of this same woman, called here “the seed 
of the woman”—who will at last “bruise the head of the. 
serpent,” and gain the victory, and bring in that glorious 
era when sin and suffering and pain and death shall have 
all rolled away into the past. There is a great deal more 
than this in that wonderful verse—more than we would 


DR. GIBSON’S REPLY. 69 


have time to tell though we spent a whole hour on it. We 
only refer to it now as an illustration. 

And now, what matters it whether you take the “ser- 
pent” that tempted Eve to be a real and literal serpent, or 
the mere (phenomenal) form of a serpent assumed by the 
Spirit of Evil for the purpose? or even whether the serpent 
form is connected with the old style of pictorial representa- 
tion? All that is minor and subordinate. There is no use 
of wasting time onit. All we want to be sure of is the 
truth, that there was a tempter, an evil spirit, that in a 
seductive form tempted our first parents and they fell. Let 
us by all means beware of allowing our time to be frittered 
away by mere trivial questions of the letter, instead of mak- 
ing it our great aim to see and to seize the great spiritual 
truths set forth in this old and simple record. 

There are many who represent this book of the Genera- 
tions as a second edition of the Genesis, or separate account 
of the creation; and of course they find difficulty in compar- 
ing the two. All their difficulty, as we shall see, comes from 
their not understanding the passage as a whole, their not 
perceiving what it was intended toteach. It will help us to 
meet this difficulty if we follow the same order of ideas as in 
the exposition of Genesis i., viz.: God, Nature, Man. In all 
we shall find marked differences. But these differences, in- 
stead of presenting any difficulty, will have their reason 
made abundantly manifest. 


God. 


First, then, there is a different name for God introduced 
here. All through the Genesis it has been “God said,” 
“God made,” “ God created.” Now it is invariably, “Je- 
hovah God ” (Lorp God in our version). And this is the 
only continuous passage in the Bible where the combination 
is used. How is this explained? Very easily. In the 


70 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


apocalypse of the Genesis, God makes Himself known sim- 
ply as Creator. Sin has not yet entered, and so the idea of 
salvation has no place. In this passage sin is coming in, 
and along with it the promise of salvation. Now the name 


Jehovah is always connected with the idea of salvation. It 


is the covenant name. It is the name which indicates 
God’s special relation to His people, as their Saviour and 
Redeemer. This name is introduced now, because God is 
about to make Himself known in anew character. He ap- 
peared in Genesis simply as Creator. He appears now in 
the book of the Generations as Redeemer; and so we get 
the name Jehovah in place of the name God. But lest any 
one should suppose from the change of name that there is 
any change in the person; lest any one suppose that He 
who is to redeem us from sin and death, is a different being 
from Him who created the heavens and the earth, the two 
names are now combined—Jehovah God. The combination 
is retained throughout the entire narrative of the Fall to 
make the identification sure. ‘Thereafter either name is. 
used by itself without danger of error. 


Nature. 


Look next at the way in which Nature is spoken of here. 
When you look at it aright, you find there is no repetition. 
Nature in the Genesis is universal nature. God created all 
things. But here, nature comes in, as it has to do immedi- 
ately with Adam. Now see the effect of this. It at once 
removes difficulties, which many speak of as of great mag- 
nitude. 

In the first place, it is not the whole earth that is now 
spoken of, but a very limited district. Our attention is. 


narrowed down to Eden, and the environs of Eden, a limi- 


ted district in a particular part of the earth. Hence the 
_ difficulty about there not being rain in the district (“earth”) 


DR. GIBSON’S REPLY. 71 


disappears. Let me here remind you once or all that the 
Hebrew word for earth and for land or district is the same. 
See Gen. xii., 1., where the word is twice used, translated 
“country ” and “ land.” 

Again, it is not the vegetable kingdom as a whole that is 
referred to in the fifth verse, but only the agricultural and 
horticultural products. The words “plant,” “field” and 
“orew” (v. 5) are new words, not found in the creation 
record.* In Gen. i. the vegetable kingdom as a whole was 
spoken of. Now, it is simply the cereals and garden herbs, 
and things of that sort; and here instead of coming into col- 
lision with the previous narrative, we have something that 
corresponds with what botanists tell us, that field and gar- 
den products are sharply distinguished in the history of 
nature from the old flora of the geological epochs. 

In the same way it is not the whole animal kingdom that 
is referred to inverse nineteen, but only the domestic ani- 
mals, those with which man was to be especially associated, 
and to which he was very much more intimately related 
than to the wild beasts of the field. It may be easy to 
make this narrative look ridiculous, by bringing the wild 
beasts in array before Adam, as if any companionship with 
them were conceivable. But when we bear in mind that 
reference is made here to the domestic animals, there is 
nothing at all inappropriate in noticing that while there is a 
certain degree of companionship possible between man and 
some of those animals, as the horse and dog, yet none of 
these was the companion he needed. 

In the first chapter of Genesis, nature is the great theme. 
Weare carried over universal nature, and the great truth is 
there set forth, that God has created all things. In the sec- 
ond chapter of Genesis, man is the great theme, and conse- 


* The correct translation of the fifth verse is: ‘‘ Now no plant of the 
field was yet in the land, and no herb of the field was growing.”’ 


72 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


quently nature is treated of only as it circles around him, | 


and is related to him. This sufficiently accounts for the 
difference between the two. 


Man. 


Passing now from nature to Man, we find again a marked 
difference. In Gen. i. we are told, “God created man in 
His own image; in the image of God created He him.” 
And here: “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the 
ground.” (ii. 7.) Some people tell as there is a contra- 
diction here. ‘Zs there any contradiction, let me ask? Are 
not both of them true? Is there not something that tells 
you that there is more than dust in your composition? Is 
there not something in-you that tells you, you are related 
to God the Creator? When you hear the statement that 
“God made man in His own image, is there not a response 
awakened in you—something in you that rises up and says, 
It is true? On the other hand, we know that man’s body 
is formed of the dust of the earth. We find it to be true 
in a more literal sense than was formerly supposed, now 
that chemistry discloses the fact that the same elements 
enter into the composition of man’s body, as are found by 
analysis in the “dust of the ground.” | 

And not only are both these statements true, but each is 
appropriate inits place. In the first account, when man’s 
place in universal nature was to be set forth—man as he 
issued from his Maker’s hand—was it not appropriate that 
his higher nature should occupy the foreground? His lower 
relations are not entirely out of sight even there, for he is 
introduced along with a whole group of animals created on 
the sixth day. But while his connection with them is sug- 
gested, that to which emphasis is given in the Genesis is 
his relation to his Maker. But now that we are going to 
hear about his fall, about his shame and degradation, is it 


2 


: Wao 
‘ 
te 


DR. GIBSON’S REPLY. 73 


not appropriate that the lower rather than the higher part 
of his nature should be brought into the foreground, inas- 


much as it is there that the danger lies? It was to that part 


of his nature that the temptation was addressed; and so we 
read here, “God formed man of the dust of the ground.” 
Yet here, too, there isa hint of his higher nature, for it is 
added, “‘ He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” 
or as we have itin another passage, “The inspiration of the 
Almighty gave him understanding.” 

In this connection it is worth while to notice the use of 
the words “created” and “formed.” “God created man 
in His own image.” So far as man’s spiritual and immor- 
tal nature was concerned it was a new creation. On the 
other hand, “God formed man out of the dust of the 
ground.” We are not told He created man’s body out of 
nothing. We are told, and the sciences of to-day confirm 
it, that it was formed out of existing materials. 


Woman. 


Then, in relation to Woman, there is the same appropri- 
ateness in the two narratives. In the former her relations 
to God are prominent: “God created man in His own im- 
age. In the image of God created He him; male and fe- 
male created He them ”—man in His image; woman in His 
image. In the latter, it is not the relation of woman to 
her Maker that is brought forward, but the relation of wo- 
man to her husband. Hence the specific reference to her 
organic connection with her husband. 

Here, again, it is very easy for one that deals in literali- 
ties to raise difficulties, forgetting that there is no intention 
here to detail scientifically the process of woman’s forma- 
tion, but simply to indicate that she is organically connected 


‘with her husband. It is here proper to remark that the ren- 


dering “rib” is probably too specific. The word is more 


74 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


frequently used in the general sense of “side.” As an ev- 
idence that there is no intention to give here any physio- 
logical information as to the origin of woman, we may refer 
to the words of Adam: ‘‘ This is now bone of my bone and 
flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Woman, because she 
was taken out of man.” And now, is there anything irra- 
tional in the idea that woman should be formed out of man? 
Is there anything more mysterious or inconceivable in the 
formation of woman out of man, than in the original form- 
ation of man out of dust? Let us conceive of our origin 
in any way we choose, it is full of mystery. Though there 
may be mystery connected with what is said in the Bible, 
there will be just as much mystery connected with any other 
account you try to give of it. Matthew Henry, in his 
quaint and half-humorous way, really gets nearer to the 
true spirit of the narrative than any physiological inter- 
preter can, when he makes the remark that some of you 
may be familiar with, “that woman was taken out of man, 
not out of his head to top him, nor out of his feet to be 
trampled underfoot; but out of his side to be equal to him, 
under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be 
beloved.” Another remark of his is worth quoting. Re- 
ferring to the fact of Adam’s being first formed and then 
Eve, and the claim of priority and consequent superiority, 
as made on his behalf by the apostle Paul, he says: “If 
man is the head, she is the crown—a crown to her husband, 
the crown of the visible creation. The man was dust re- 
fined, but the woman was dust double-refined—one remove 
further from the earth.” 

But, Matthew Henry apart, one thing is certain, that this 
old Bible narrative, while it has not done that which it was 
never intended to do, while it has given no scientific expla- 


nation of either man’s origin or woman’s origin, has never- ° 


theless accomplished its great object. It has given woman 


DR. GIBSON’S REPLY. 15 


her true place in the world. It is only in Bible lands that 
woman has her true place; and it is only there that marriage 
has its proper sacredness. Here as everywhere else, we see 
the practical power of the Bible. It was not written to 
satisfy curiosity, but to save and to bless; and most salutary 
and most blessed has been the influence of these earliest 
words about woman, setting forth her true relation to man 
and to God, to her earthly husband and her heavenly Father. 


Mistakes Respecting Labor and Death, Corrected. 


. . . The Bible has been charged with representing labor 
asacurse. Thecharge isnot true. On the contrary, we are 
told that Adam was appointed in Eden to dress the garden 
and keep it. ‘The law of labor came in among the blessings 
of Eden, along with the law of obedience and the marriage 
law. It is a slander on the Bible to say that it represents 
labor asa curse. It is not the labor that is thecurse. It is 
the thorns and the thistles. It is the hardness of the labor. 
“In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread.” Labor 
would have been easy and pleasant otherwise. 

Then in regard to death. There are those who represent 
the Bible as if it taught that death was unknown in the 
world until after the Fall. And then they point us to the 
reign of death throughout the epochs of geology as contra- 
dicting the Bible. Now, the Bible teaches nothing of the 
kind. On the contrary, there seems rather to be a suggestion 
that death was in existence among the lower animals all the 
way through. Not to speak of the probability that one of 
the divisions of animals, mentioned in the first chapter of 
Genesis, corresponds with the carnivora, is there not some- 
thing in the way the subject of death is introduced, which 
rather suggests the idea that it was already known? It was 
anew thing to Adam. It was not a new thing to animal 
life. Man had been created with relations to mortality 


76 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


below him, but with relations also to immortality above 
him. Had he not fallen, his immortal nature would have 
ruled his destiny; but now that he has separated himself 
from God by his sin, his lower relations, his mortal relations, 
must rule his destiny. Instead of having as his destiny the 
prospect of being associated with God in a» happy immor- 
tality, he is degraded from that position, and is henceforth 
associated with the animals in their mortality. Weare told 
that “death passed upon all men, because all have sinned.” 
But you do not find a passage in the Bible asserting that 
death passed upon the animals because of man’s sin. 


The Deluge and its Difficulties — Not Universal —- Ararat 
pas pued a District (Alas! Ingersoll Calls it a High 
Mountain )—Other Deluges. | 


. . We must here touch a little on the difficulties con- 
nected with the story of the flood. These difficulties are 
almost all founded upon the idea that the deluge was univer- 
sal; that it covered the highest tops of the Himalayas in 
India, the Rocky Mountains here, and all the mountains over 
all the earth. It is but reasonable, then, to ask if there is 
good reason for insisting that it was universal? 

I know of only three strong reasons that are given for this 
position. The first is the use of the term “ earth ” continu- 
ally throughout the narrative, which only proves that those 
who translated the Bible into English, believed the flood to 
have been universal. As we have had occasion already to 
prove, the word “earth ” in Hebrew means just as readily a 
limited district. Why do not those who insist so strongly 
on the wide signification of “earth” here, not insist upon 
the same interpretation in such a passage as Genesis, xii. 1, 
and make it an article of faith that Abraham left the world 
altogether and went to another, when he left Ur of the 
Chaldees and went to Canaan? The second argument for 


* 


DR. GIBSON’S REPLY. 11 


universality is found in universal expressions, the strongest 
of which is Gen. vii. 19: “And the waters prevailed ex- 
ceedingly upon the earth, and all the high hills that were 
under the whole heaven were covered.” Now remember 
that this is the account of an eye-witness, vividly describing 
just what he saw, water on every side, water all around, 
nothing but water—even the mountains to the farthest verge 
of the horizon covered over with water. When, in the book 
of Job, we read of the lightning flashing over the whole 
heaven, the meaning surely can not be that a lightning flash 
starts at a certain degree of latitude and longitude, and 
makes a journey right round the world to the point where 
it started. ‘The whole heavens” is evidently bounded by 
the horizon. ‘The third reason which has led people to sup- 
pose the whole earth was covered with water, is found in 
the tradition that the ark rested on Mount Ararat. The 
tradition, we say, for that is all the authority there is for the 
idea. In Gen. vii. 4, we are told that the ark rested on the 
mountains or highlands of “ Ararat.” ‘The word “ Ararat” 
only occurs other two times in the bible, and in neither 
place does it refer to what was only long afterward called 
Mt. Ararat. In Old Testament times Ararat was not a 
mountain at all, but a district, on some of the highlands of 
which the ark rested. A moment’s thought will show that 
it could not be on the top of Ararat. It would require one 
of the hardiest mountaineers to perform such a feat as the 
climbing of Ararat. It would be the most inconvenient 
place you could think of for the ark to rest on. When you 
look fairly at these three arguments that are urged in sup- 
port of a universal deluge, you will find that none of them 
really demand it. 

On the other hand, there are things that seem to point 
the other way. In the eieventh verse of the seventh chap- 
ter we are told that “in the second month, the seventeenth 


78 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


day of the month, were all the fountains of the great deep 
broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” 
There is no indication there of the sudden creation of such 
a body of water as would cover the earth to the depth of 
30,000 feet above the old sea-level. ‘The causes that are as- 
signed are just such as could be most readily and naturally 
used. It may be worth while to notice here in passing, an 
attempt which has been made recently to cast ridicule upon 
the story of the flood, by representing the Bible as if it 
attributed the deluge to nothing else than a long, heavy 
rain, whereas the first importance is given to an entirely 
different cause: “the fountains of the great deep were bro- 


ken up.” That is just what would appear to one who was | 


describing such a scene as we imagine this to be. Suppose 
there had been some great submergence of the land there, 
as has taken place in other parts of the world. There would 
be a rushing up of water from below, from “the fountains 
of the great deep.” 

Again, in the first verse of the eighth chapter, natural 
agency is made use of: “God made a wind to pass over the 
earth, and the waters assuaged.” There is no reason why 
we should suppose a greater miracle performed than was 
necessary. Still further; turn to the tenth verse of the ninth 
chapter, where God says: “I establish my covenant with 
you, and with every living creature that is with you; from 
all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.” 
What were those beasts of the earth thus distinguished from 
those going out of the ark? Probably they were those that 
came from the area of land not covered by the flood. 

Then again, attention is called to thé purpose of the flood, 
which was simply to destroy the race of men, and it is not 
to be supposed they had traveled a great distance by this 
time from their original place of abode. The extent of the 
flood need not have been any greater than was necessary to 
submerge that area. 


m X rf o 
a Steg Bice = = 
ee En ee ee nr 


Dk. GIBSON’S REPLY. 79 


Further, when we take this view, not only do yeological 
and other difficulties disappear, but there is decided confir- 
mation from modern scientific research. There is no evi- 
dence in geology that there was in any period of the earth’s 
history, a flood great enough to overtop the Rocky Moun- 
tains, but there are evidences of floods as great as this one 
must have been, for the purpose of destroying the race. I 
do not know how it is in the immediate region where the 
flood is supposed to have been. I do not know whether 
geologists have explored it sufficiently; but this is certain, 
that there are evidences of similar floods in other parts of 
the world. Some of our own geologists have discovered 
evidences of them in this very neighborhood. You have not 
to go very far from Chicago to find such traces of sudden, 
powerful, and transient diluvial action. Then, finally, this 
view of the deluge removes, of course, all difficulty about 
the number of animals in the ark, because all that was 
necessary was, that the species more nearly connected with 
man, those found in the region that was submerged, should 
be represented in the ark. 

But after all, the question of extent is of quite minor 
importance so long as it is conceded that it was universal in 
the sense of destroying all but the family of Noah. The 
reality of the judgment is the great thing, and of this we have 
abundant confirmation from tradition. We find legends of 
a flood everywhere. We find them among the Semitic and 
Aryan and Turanian races. We find them east and west, 
and north and south; in savage nations and civilized nations; 
on continents and in islands; in the old world and in the © 
new. And if Egypt is a solitary exception, which is very 
doubtful, but if it is, the exception is accounted for by the 
simple fact that in that country they have floods every year. 

Here again, as in the traditions of the Fall, there is 
difference enough to show which is the original and true. 


— 80 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


Other traditions of the flood are polytheistic, whereas here 
we have the one living and true God. Those are full of 
mythological elements, whereas here is a plain narrative, 
with the impressive scene vividly, but quite simply, depicted. 


In heathen traditions, too, you find many grotesque items ~ 


and exaggerations, as for instance, when the ark is described 
as three-fourths of a mile long, and drops of rain the size 
of a bull’s head; and,. generally speaking, a conspicuous ab- 
sence of that moral purpose which is so impressive and all- 
pervading in the narrative before us. 


Faith in Jesus Christ the Hssential Factor. 


There are those in our day who find a stumbling- 
block at the very threshold of the Christian life, in the fancy, 
that what is required of them in order to salvation, is the cred- 
iting of all the details of a long history extending from the 
first man to the last man, from Adam to the consummation 
of all things; and long accustomed to that sceptical attitude 
of mind which questions all things, they think it would 
take them a life-time (as indeed it would) to verify every 
statement that is made from Genesis to Revelation, and 
clear them from all possible objections; and so they do not 
venture at all. But remember, it is never said: ‘ Believe 
everything that is in the Bible and you will be saved.” Ah, 
there have been many who believed everything in the Bible, 
who never thought of questioning a sentence in it, who will 
find themselves none the better for their easy acquiescence 
in the statements of a book which they had been taught to 
accept as inspired. There is no such word written as, 
“Believe the Bible and you will be saved.” No. It is 
“ Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be 
saved.” Do not trouble yourselves in the first instance about 
questions connected with the book of Genesis, or difficulties 
suggested by the book of Revelation. Let the wars of the 


~ 
roe 


- 


SS ar Shee =. 


DR. GIBSON’S REPLY. 81 


Jews alone in the meantime, and dismiss Jonah from your 
mind. Look to Jesus; get acquainted with Him; listen to 
His word; believe in Him; trust Him; obey Him. That 
is all that is asked of you in the first instance. After you 
have believed on Christ and taken Him as your Saviour, 
your Master, your Model, you will not be slow to find out 
that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is 
profitable for doctrine and for reproof, and for correction, 
and for instruction in righteousness.” You may never 
have all your difficulties solved, or all your objections met; 
but though difficulties may still remain, and interrogation 
points be scattered here and there over the wide Bible-field, 
you will be sure of your foundation; you will feel that your 
feet are planted on the “ Rock of Ages,” even on Him of 
whom God, by the mouth of the prophet Isaiah, said: 
“ Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried 
stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation: he that 
believeth shall not make haste.” 


Candor v. Injustice—Dr, Gibson’s Pointed Summary. 


The prevailing feeling among intelligent readers of the 
Bible in reference to the profane and coarse assaults made 
on it by Mr. Robert Ingersoll, is that few people are so 
ignorant as to be imposed upon by his vulgar witticisms. 
But, inasmuch as there are not a few who accept without 
inquiry his account of what is in the Bible, it may be well 
to give a few illustrations of his unscrupulousness in put- 
ting “mistakes” into the Bible which he either knows or 
ought to know, are not there. 

He asserts positively that Moses must have understood 
by firmament something solid, though every one who has 
studied the subject knows, and the fact has been published 
again and again, that the Hebrew word means something 


82 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


exceedingly attenuated, being the very best word in the 
language to designate the atmosphere; while the mistake 
found in the English word “ firmament,” is due to the sc1- 
ence of Alexandria, where in the third century before 
Christ, the ‘ expanse ” of Moses was translated “ stereoma” 
(firmament) to suit the advanced astronomy of the time. 

When, in speaking of the vegetation of the third day, he 
says, “Not a blade of grass had even been touched by a 
single gleam of light,” is he dealing fairly with a narrative 
that makes light its first creation ? 

When he accuses Moses of compressing the astronomy 
of the universe into five words, is he dealing fairly with a 
narrative that does not profess to give any astronomy at 
all, but, after a general reference to the heavens and the earth 
as created in the beginning, restricts itself to the earth and 
its “environment?’? Any intelligent person can see that 
this is the reason why sun, moon and stars are referred to 
only in their relations to the earth. 

When he represents the first and second chapters of Gen- 
esis aS a varying repetition of the same story, is it fair to 
withhold all reference to the different purport and object of — 
the two narratives, which fully and satisfactorily explains 
the variation ? 

Is it fair to speak of the deluge to represent it as ascribed 
to nothing but rain, when the Bible expressly says, “All 
the fountains of the great deep were broken up,” evidently 
pointing to such a subsidence of the land as is familiar to 
any one acquainted with geology. 

Is it fair to make the Bible responsible for the Armenian 
tradition that the ark rested on the top of Mount Ararat, 
17,000 feet high, when the Bible nowhere, from Genesis to 
Revelation, makes any such statement? The district of 
Ararat on the mountains or highlands of which the ark 
rested is not the “ Agri-Dagh” to which the name Ararat 


DR. GIBSON’S REPLY. 83 


has in modern times been given; and Mr. Ingersoll’s 
ignorant mistake about it is of the same kind as that of the 
bumpkin who should inquire for the Coliseum in Rome, N. 
Y., or seek the tomb of Leonidas in Sparta, Wisconsin. 

It will be at once seen that with this childlike ignorance 
is connected the Ingersoll nonsense that the water was five 
and a half miles deep. So says the ignorant critic, while 
the simple and reasonable statement of the Bible is: 
“Tifteen cubits upwards did the water prevail.” As for the 
submersion of even the hills to the. utmost verge of the 
horizon, the subsidence of the land was quite sufficient to 
accomplish it without resorting to the supposition of any 
unreasonable quantity of water. 

Is it fair, when Mr. Ingersoll wishes to render ridiculous 
the rate of increase among the Israelites in Egypt, to rep- 
resent the length of their stay there as 215 years, when 
Moses says (Exodus, x1r., 40): “ Now the sojourning of the 
children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt was 430 years.” 
The only other place in the Pentateuch where the length of 
their stay is referred to is in the prediction concerning itin . 
Genesis xv., where it is put in round numbers at 400 
years. To do Mr. Ingersoll justice, it is admitted that 
certain theologians, on the strength of one or two passages 
in the New Testament and some genealogical difficulties, 
have favored shortening the period, but the subject was not 
the mistakes of Moses, but of theologians; and again we 
ask, Was it fair, without a word of apology or explanation, 
to deduct more than two centuries from the time Moses 
gives, and then make all his coarse, not to say indecent, 
ridicule turn on the shortness of the time? 

One hardly knows how to characterize the infamy of such 
a passage as that about the bird-eating priests during the 
time of rapid increase, in view of the fact that there were 
no priests at all, and no such rule as he refers to during the 


4: m i : 
i sa r as ed , 
J ei tes eh cant ; 
4, ingle a ! sk TW 5 Neti og 
POLS. Leh Ue uk De aay anc Hes ae 
> ; a “ b ; me <i % 
HC hae | "MISTAKES: OF INGERSOLL. we 
: \ ; entire 430 years! The consecration of Aaron, | thay, 


- priest, did not take place till after the Law was Lee a 
pigeons was still later. These are mere specimens 0 


‘ mistakes and misrepresentations which form the wes a : i 
woof of this lecture. ; 


ed 6 ya. | eee ale f my 


WHAT DISTINGUISHED MEN SAY OF THE BIBLE. 8 


WHAT DISTINGUISHED MEN SAY OF 
THE BIBLE. 


SCIENTISTS. 


Tue grand old book of God still stands, and this old earth, 
the more its leaves are turned over and pondered, the more 
it will sustain and illustrate the sacred word.-—Professor 
Dana. 


Inripettry has, from time, erected her imposing ramparts, 
and opened fire upon Christianity from a thousand batter- 
ies. But the moment the rays of truth were concentrated 
upon their ramparts they melted away. ‘The last clouds of 
ignorance are passing, and the thunders of infidelity are 
dying upon the ear. The union and harmony of Christian- 
ity and science is asure token that the flood of unbelief and 
ignorance shall never more go over the world.— Professor 


Hitchcock. 


Aut human discoveries seem to be made only for the pur- 
pose of confirming, more and more strongly, the truths 
contained in the sacred Scriptures.—Sw John Herschel. 


Tue Bible furnishes the only fitting vehicle to express the 
thoughts that overwhelm us when contemplating the stellar 
-universe.—O. UM. Mitchell. 


In my investigation of natural science, I have always 
found that whenever I can meet with anything in the*Bible, 


86 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


on any subject, it always affords mea fine platform on which 
to stand.—Lveutenant Maury 


Ir the God of love is most appropriately worshiped in 
the Christian temple, the God of nature may be equally 
honored in the temple of science. Even from its lofty 
rainarets, the philosopher may summon the faithful to 
prayer; and the priest and the sage exchange altars without 
the compromise of faith or knowledge.—Sir David Brews- 
ter. 


A nation’s intellectual progress has always followed—not 
preceded—some moral impulse. The history of the fine arts 
shows that some form of religion gave them their earliest 
impulse. There has never been a great genius but has been 
inspired in some sense by religion. The thoughts of the 
intellect are lofty in proportion as the sentiments of the 
heart are profound. If we begin the attempt to improve 
men with the intellect we end where we begun. Education 
will not remove corruption. It may guide vice as in ancient 
Rome and Athens, but will not uproot it. A godless edu- 
cation has no power to purify. Instruction in morality 
also has failed to regenerate. Noman does his duty simply 
because he knows it unless he loves it; nor are political and 
social changes effective. Social evil has its root in the 
individual heart, and cannot be removed except by influ- 
ences operating within it. This fountain of man’s corrup- 
tion must be purified to corrupt social vice.—Prof. Seelye. 


STATESMEN. 


TueEre is a book worth all other books which were ever 
printed.— Patrick Henry. 


Tut Bible is the best book in the world.—John Adams. 


WHAT DISTINGUISHED MEN SAY OF THE BIBLE, 87 


So great is my veneration for the Bible, that the earlier 
my children begin to read it, the more confident will be my 
hopes that they will prove useful citizens to their country, 
and respectable members of society.—John Quincy Ad- 
ams. 


Ir is impossible to govern the world without God. He 
must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more 
than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge 
his obligation.— General George Washington. 


Porntine to the family Bible on the stand, during his last 
illness, Andrew Jackson said to his friend: ‘ That book, sir, 
ig the rock on which our republic rests.” 


I prem the present occasion sufficiently important and 
solemn to justify me in expressing to my fellow citizens a 
profound reverence for the Christian religion, and a thorough 
conviction that sound morals, religious liberty, and a just 
sense of religious responsibility, are essentially connected 
with all true and lasting happiness.—General Harrison’s 
Inaugural Address. 


As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you par- 
ticularly desire, I think the system of morals, and His relig- 
ion, as He left them to us, is the best the world ever saw, or 
is likely to see.—Benjamin franklin. 


Do you think that your pen, or the pen of any other man, 
can unchristianize the mass of our citizens? Or have you 
hopes of corrupting a few of them to assist you in so bad a 
cause’—Samuel Adams’ Letter to Thomas Paine. 


Curistraniry is the only true and perfect religion, and that 
in proportion as mankind adopt its principles and obey its 
precepts, they will be wise and happy. And a better knowl- 
edge of this religion is to be acquired by reading the Bible 
than in any other way.— Benjamin Lush. 


88 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


Wuen that illustrious man, Chief Justice Joy, was dying, 
he was asked if he had any farewell address to leave his 
children; he replied, “ They have the Bible.” 


I arways have had, and always shall have, a profound re- 
gard for Christianity, the religion of my fathers, and for its 
rites, its usages, and observances.—/Zenry Clay. 


A Frew days before his death, “the foremost man of all 
his times,” drew up and signed this declaration of his relig- 
ious faith: “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. 
Philosophical argument, especially that drawn from the 
vastness of the universe, in comparison with the insignifi- 
cance of this globe, has sometimes shaken my reason for 
the faith that is in me, but my heart has always assured 
and reassured me that the gospel of Jesus Christ must be a 
divine reality. The Sermon on the Mount cannot be a 
merely human production. ‘This belief enters into the very 
depth of my conscience.”—Daniel Webster. 


“ Horp fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of our liber- 
erties; write its precepts on your hearts, and practice them 
in your lives. ‘To the influence of this book we are indebted 
for the progress made in true civilization, and to this we 
must look as our guide in the future.— JU. S. Grant. 


Puitosopuy has sometimes forgotten God; as great people 
never did. The skepticism of the last century could not 
uproot Christianity, because it lived in the hearts of the 
millions. Do you think that infidelity is spreading? Chris- 
tianity never lived in the hearts of so many millions as at 
this moment. The forms under which it is professed may 
decay, for they, like all that is the work of man’s hands, are 
subject to the changes and chances of mortal being; but the 
spirit of truth is incorruptible; it may be developed, illus- 
trated and applied; it can never die; it never can decline. 


WHAT DISTINGUISHED MEN SAY OF THE BIBLE. 89 


No truth can perish. No truth can passaway. The flame 
is undying, though generations disappear. Wherever mor- 
tal truth has started into being humanity claims and guards 
the bequest. Each generation gathers together the imper- 
ishable children of the past, and increases them by the new 
sons of the light, alike radiant with immortality—ban- 
croft. 


GREAT THINKERS. 


Ir is a belief in the Bible which has served me as the 
guide of my moral and literary life—Cocthe. 


I account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime 
philosophy.—S¢tr Lsaac Newton. 


To give a man a full knowledge of true morality, I 
should need to send him to no other book than the New 
Testament.—John Locke. 


I xnow the Bible is inspired, because it finds me at 
greater depths of my being than any other book.—Cole- 
ridge. 

A nostEe book! All men’s book. It is onr first state- 
ment of the never-ending problem of man’s destiny and 
God’s way with men on earth.—Carlyle. 

I musr confess the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me 


with astonishment.— Rousseau. 


“Tiere is not a boy nor a girl, all Cliristendom through, 
but their lot is made better by this great book.—7heodore 
Parker. 


Take the gospel away, and what a mockery is human 
philosophy! I once met a thoughtful scholar who told me | 


90 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


that for years he had read every book which assailed the 
religion of Jesus Christ. He said that he should have 
become an infidel if it had not been for three things: 

“Virst, lam aman. Iam going somewhere. I am to- 
night a day nearer the grave than last night. I have read 
all that they can tell me. There is not one solitary ray of 
light upon the darkness. They shall not take away the 
only guide and leave me stone blind. 

“Secondly, I had a mother. I sawher go down into. the 
dark valley where I am going, and she leaned upon an un- 
seen arm as calmly as a child goes to sleep upon the breast 
of a mother. I know that was not a dream. 

“Thirdly,” he said with tears in his eyes, “I have three 
motherless daughters. They have no protector but myself. 
I would rather kill them than leave them in this sinful 
world if you could blot out from it all the teachings of the 
Gospel.”—DBishop Whipple. 


Wuen Daniel Webster was in his best moral state, and 
when he was in the prime of his manhood, he was one day 
dining with a company of literary gentlemen in the city of 
Boston. The company was composed of clergymen, law- 
yers, physicians, statesmen, merchants, and almost all 
classes of literary persons.. During the dinner conversa- 
tion incidentally turned upon the subject of Christianity. 
Mr. Webster, as the occasion was in honor of him, was 
expected to take a leading part in the conversation, and he 
frankly stated as his religious sentiments his belief in the 
divinity of Christ, and his dependence upon the atonement 
of the Savior. A minister of very considerable literary 
reputation sat almost opposite him at the table, and he 
looked at him and said: “ Mr. Webster, can you compre- 
hend how Jesus Christ could be both Godand man?” Mr. 
Webster, with one of those looks which no man ean imitate, 


WHAT DISTINGUISHED MEN,SAY OF THE BIBLE. 91 


fixed his eyes upon him, and promptly and emphatically 
said: “ No, sir, | cannot comprehend it; and I would be 
ashamed to acknowledge him as my Savior if I could com- 
prehend it. If I could comprehend him, he could be no 
greater than myself, and such is my conviction of accounta- 
bility to God, such is my sense of sinfulness before him, 
and such is my knowledge of my own incapacity to recover 
myself, that I feel 1 need a superhuman Savior.”—Lishop 
Janes. 


Wuar can be more foolish than to think that all this rare 
fabric of Heaven and earth could come by chance, when all 
the skill of art’ is not able to make an oyster{—Jerenvy 


Taylor. 


Ir would nof#be worth while to live if we were to die 
entirely. That which alleviates labor and sanctifies toil is 
to have before us the vision of a better world through the 
darkness of this life. That world is to me more real than 
the chimera which we devour, and which we call life. Itis 
forever before my eyes. It is the supreme certainty of my 
reason, as it is the supreme consolation of my soul.— Vic- 
tor Hugo. 


Once, had I been called upon to create the earth, I should 
have done as the many would now. I should have laid it out 
in pleasure-grounds, and given man Milton’s occupation of 
tending flowers. But I am now satisfied with this wild 
earth, its awful mountains and depths, steeps and torrents. 
I am not sorry to learn that God’s end is a virtue far 
higher than I should have prescribed.—Channing. 


To do good to men is the great work of life; to make 
them true Christians is the greatest’ good we can do them. 
Every investigation brings us round to this point. Begin 


92 MISTAKES:OF INGERSOLL. 


here and you are like one who strikes water from a rock on 
the summit of the mountains; it flows down all the inter- 
vening tracts to the very base. If we could make each 
man love his neighbor, we should make a happy world. 
The true method is to begin with ourselves and so extend 
the circle around us. It should be perpetually in our 
minds.—/. W. Alexander. 


From philosophy, from poetry and from art, is heard the 
acknowledgment that there is no repose for the rational 
spirit but in moral truth. The ‘testimony that the whole 
creation groaneth and travaileth in pain, together, is as 
loud and convincing from the domain of-letters, as it is 
from the cursed and thistle-bearing ground. From the 
immortal longing and dissatisfaction of Pl@to, down to the 
wild and passionate restlessness of Byron and Shelley, the 
evidence is decisive that a spiritual and religious element 
must enter into the education of man in order to inward 


harmony and rest.—Dr. Shedd. 


“Tim mother of a family was married to an infidel, who 
made a jest of religion in the presence of his own children; 
yet she succeeded in bringing them all up in the fear of 
the Lord. Ione day asked her how she preserved them 
from the influence of a father whose sentiments were so 
openly opposed to her own. This was her answer: ‘ Because 
to the authority of a father I did not oppose the authority 
of a mother, but that of God. From their earliest years my 
children have always seen the Bible upon my table. This 
holy book has constituted the whole of their religious 
instruction. I was silent that I might allow it to speak. 
Did they propose a question, did they commit any fault, 
did they perform any good action, I opened the Bible, and 
the Bible answered, reproved or encouraged them. The 


WHAT DISTINGUISHED MEN SAY OF THE BIBLE. 93 


constant reading of the Scriptures has alone wrought the 
prodigy which surprises you.’”—Adolphe Monod. 


I preAcneD on Sunday in the parlors at Long Branch. 
The war was over, and Admiral Farragut and his family 
were spending the summer at the Branch. Sitting on the 
portico of the hotel Monday morning, he said to me, 
Would you like to know how I was enabled to serve my 
country? It was all owing to a resolution I formed when 
I was ten years of age. My father was sent down to New 
Orleans with the little navy we then had, to look after the 
treason of Burr. I accompanied him as cabin-boy. I had 
some qualities that I thought made a manof me. I could 
swear like an old salt; could drink a stiff glass of grog as 
if I had doubled Cape Horn, and could smoke like <a loco- 
motive. I was great at cards and fond of gaming in every 
shape. At the close of the dinner one day, my father 
turned every body out of the cabin, locked the door, and 
said to me: 

“<¢ David, what do you mean to be?’ ’ 

-“¢T mean to follow the sea.’ 
“<Follow the sea! Yes, be a poor, miserable drunken 


sailor before the mast, kicked and cuffed about the world, 


and die in some fever hospital, in a foreign clime.’ 

“¢No,’ I said, ‘Vl tread the quarter-deck and command 
as you do.’ 

“« No, David; no boy ever trod the quarter-deck with 
such principles as you have, and such habits as you exhibit. 
You'll have to change your whole course of life if you ever 
become a man.’ 

“ My father left me and went on deck. I was stunned 
by the rebuke and overwhelmed with mortification. ‘A 
poor, miserable, drunken sailor before the mast, kicked and 
cuffed about the world, and to die in some fever hospital! 


mF 


Kyi: 7 
su 


mon ere ae as aa 4 


— 


ul 


94 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


That’s my fate, is it? Il change my life, and change it at 
once. I will never utter another oath, I will never drink 
another drop of intoxicating liquors, I will never gamble.’ ~ 
And, as God is my witness, I have kept those three vows 
to this hour. Shortly after, 1 became a Christian. That 
act settled my temporal, as it settled my eternal destiny.” 
—Anon. 


A Brsre well worn in that part which contains the Ser- 
mon on the Mount is the book which our age most. needs. 
There the Will of the Father, those laws which save souls 
or damn them lie in perfect plainness. No commentary 
can throw light upon them, no science or learning can take 
their light away. They are a part of the universe, only 
more imperishable than the stars. Ohrist died for man be- 
cause man would not respect these laws of the kingdom. 
Having died for sinners, He now invites them to come into 
these laws of the Father. Do not mistake the invitation.— 
Dawnd Swing. 


You never can get at the literal limitation of living facts. 
They disguise themselves by the very strength of their life; 
get told again and again in different ways by all manner of 
people; the literalness of them is turned topsy-turvy, inside 
out, over and over again; then the fools come and read them 
wrong side upwards, or else say there never was a fact at all. 
Nothing delights a true blockhead so much as to prove a neg- 
ative,—to show that everybody has been wrong. Fancy the 
delicious sehsation to an empty-headed creature of fancying 
for a moment that he has emptied everybody else’s head as 
well as his own! nay, that for once, his own hollow bottle 
of a lead has had the best of other bottles, and has been first 
empty,—first to know nothing.—/’uskin. ) : 


Ir is not so wretched to be blind as it is not to be capable | 
of enduring blindness. Let me be the most feeble creature 


WHAT DISTINGUISHED MEN “SAY OF THE BIBLE. 9 


alive as long as that feebleness serves to invigorate the en- 
ergies of my rational and immortal spirit; so long as in that 
obscurity in which | am enveloped the light of the divine 
presence more clearly shines; and indeed, in my blindness 
I enjoy in no inconsiderable degree the favor of the Deity, 
who regards me with more tenderness and compassion in 
proportion as I am able to behold nothing but Himself. 
For the divine law not only shields me from injury, but al- 
most renders me too sacred to attack, as from the overshad- 
owing of those heavenly wings which seem to have occasioned 
this obscurity.—J/dlton. 


A prince said to Rabbi Gamaliel: “Your God is a 
thief; he surprised Adam in his sleep, and stole a rib from 
him.” The Rabbi’s daughter overheard this speech, and 
whispered a word or two in her father’s ear, asking his 
permission to answer this singular opinion herself. He 
.gave his consent. ‘The girl stepped forward, and feigning 
terror and dismay, threw her arms aloft in supplication, and 
‘cried out, “ My liege, my liege, justice! revenge!” “ What 
has happened?” asked the prince. “A wicked theft has 
taken place,” she replied. “A robber has crept secretly 
into our house, carried away a silver goblet, and left a 
golden one in its stead.” “ What an upright thief!” 
exclaimed the prince. ‘“ Would that such robberies were 
of more frequent occurrence!” ‘“ Behold, then, sir, the 
kind of thief our Creator was; he stole a rib from Adam, - 
and gave him a beautiful wife instead.” ‘Well said!” 
avowed the prince.— Zalmud Sanhedrum. 


Oncr there was a Judge who had a colored man. The 
colored man was very godly, and the Judge used to have 
him to drive him around in his cireuit. The Judge used 
often to talk with him, and the colored man would tell the 
Judge about his religious experience, and about his battles: 


96 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


and conflicts. One day the Judge said to him: “Sambo, 
how is it that you Christians are always talking about the 
conflicts you have with Satan? I am better off than you 
are. I don’t have any troubles or conflicts, and yet [am an 
infidel and you are a Christian—always in a muss;—how ’s 
that, Sambo?’ This floored the colored man for awhile. He 
did n’t know how to meet the old infidel’s argument. So he 
shook his head sorrowfully and said: “I dunno, Massa, I 
dunno.” The Judge always carried a gun along with him 
for hunting. Pretty soon they came to alot of ducks. The 
Judge todk his gun and blazed away at them, and wounded 
one and killed another. The Judge said quickly: “ You 
jump in, Sambo, and get that wounded duck before he gets 
off,” and did not pay any attention to the dead one. In 
went Sambo for the wounded duck, and came out reflecting. 
The colored man then thought he had an illustration. He 
said to the Judge: “Ihab ’im now, Massa; I’se able to 
show you how de Christian hab greater conflict dan de infi- 
del. Don’t you know de moment you wounded dat ar duck, 
how anxious you was to get im out, and you did n’t care for 
de dead, but jus’ lef’? him alone?”’ “Yes,” said the Judge. 
“Well,” said Sambo, “ye see as how dat are dead duck’s a 
sure thing. I’se wounded, and I tries to get away from the 
debbil. It takes trouble tocotchme. But, Massa, you are 
a dead duck—dar’s no squabble for you; de debbil have you 
sure!” So the devil has no conflict with the infidel._—D-_ 
L. Moody. 


THE LIGRARY 
eames OR ANB Yi ie 
| NIVERIITY AF TRIM 


“MISTAKES ‘OF MOSES.” 97 


INGERSOLL’S LECTURE 


“THE MISTAKES OF MOSES.” 


Now and then some one asks me why I am endeavoring to interfere 
with the religious faith of others, and why I try to take from the world 
the consolation naturally arising from a belief in eternal fire... And I an- 
swer, | want to do what little I can to make my country truly free. I 
want to broaden the intellectual horizon of our people. I want it so that 
we can differ upon all those questions, and yet grasp each other’s hands 
in genuine friendship. I want in the first place to free the clergy. I am 
a great friend of theirs, but they don’t seem to have found it out gener- 
ally. I want it so that every minister will be not a parrot, not an owl sit- 
ting upon a dead limb of the tree of knowledge and hooting the hoots that 
have been hooted for eighteen hundred years. But [ want it so that each 
one can be an investigator, athinker; and I want to make his congregation 
grand enough so that they will not only allow him to think, but will de- 
mand that he shall think, and give to them the honest truth of his 
thought. As it is now, ministers are employed like attorneys—for the 
plaintiff or the defendant. Ifa few people know of a young man in the 
neighborhood maybe who has not a good constitution—he may not be 
healthy enough to be wicked—a young man who has shown no decided 
talent—it occurs to them to make him a minister. They contribute and 
send him tosomeschool. If it turns out that that young man has more of 
the man in him than they thought, and he changes his opinion, every 
one who contributed will feel himself individually swindled—and they 
will follow that young man to the grave with the poisoned shafts of mal- 
ice and slander. [want itso that every one will be free—so that a pulpit will 
not be a pillory. They have in Massachusetts, at a place called Andover, 

7 


98 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


/ 


.a@ kind of minister-factory; and every professor in that factory takes an 
oath once in every five years—that is as long as an oath will last—that 
not only has he not during the last five years, but so help him God, he 
will not during the next five years intellectually advance; and probably 
there is no oath he could easier keep. Since the foundation of that insti- 
tution there has not been one case of perjury. They believe the same 
creed they first taught when the foundation stone was laid, and now when 
they send out a minister they brand him as hardware from Sheffield and 
Birmingham. And every man who knows where he was educated knows 
his creed, knows every argument of his creed, every book that he reads, 
and just what he amounts to intellectually, and knows he will shrink and 
shrivel, and become solemnly stupid day after day until he meets with 
death. It is all wrong; it is cruel. Those men should be allowed to 
grow. They should have the air of liberty and the sunshine of thought. 

I want to free the schools of our country. I want it so that when a 
professor in a college finds some fact inconsistent with Moses, he will not 
hide the fact, that it will not be the worse for him for having discovered 
the fact. I wish to see an eternal divorce and separation between church 
and schools. The common school is the bread of life; but there should 
be nothing taught in the schools except what somebody knows; and any- 
thing else should not be maintained by a system of general taxation. I 
want its professors so that they will tell everything they find; -that they 
will be free to investigate in every direction, and will not be trammeled 
by the superstitions of our day. What has religion to do with facts? 
Nothing. Is there any such thing as Methodist mathematics, Presbyter- 
ian botany, Catholic astronomy or Baptist biology? What has any form 
of superstition or religion to do with a fact or with any science? Nothing 
but to hinder, delay or embarrass. I want, then, to free the schools; 
and I want to free the politicians, so that a man will not have to pretend 
he is a Methodist, or his wife a Baptist, or his grandmother a Catholic; 
so that he can go through a campaign, and when he gets through will 
find none of the dust of hypocrisy on his knees. 

I want the people splendid enough that when they desire men to 
make laws for them, they will take one who knows something, who has 
brains enough to prophesy the destiny of the American Republic, no 
matter what his opinions may be upon any religious subject. Suppose 
we are in a storm out at sea, and the billows are washing over our ship, 
and itis necessary that some one should reef the topsail, and a man pre- 
sents himself. Would you stop him at the foot of the mast to find out 
his opinion on the five points of Calvinism? What has that to do with 
it? Congress has nothing to do with baptism or any particular creed, 


and from what little experience I have had of Washington, very little to — 


“MISTAKES OF MOSES.” 99 


do with any kind of religion whatever. Now I hope, this afternoon, this 
magnificent and splendid audience will forget that they are Baptists or 
Methodists, and remember that they aremenand women. ‘These are the 
highest titles humanity can bear—man and woman; and every title you 
add belittles them. Man is the highest; woman is the highest. Let us 
remember that we are simply human beings, with interests in common. 
And let us remember that our views depend largely upon the country in 
which we happen to live. Suppose we were born in Turkey most of us 
would have been Mohammedans; and when we read in the book that 
when Mohammed visited heaven he became acquainted with an angel 
named Gabriel, who was so broad between his eyes that it would take a 
smart camel three hundred days to make the journey, we probably would 
have believed it. If we did not, people would say: ‘‘ That young man 
is dangerous; he is trying to tear down the fabricof our religion. What 
do you propose to give us instead of that angel? We cannot afford to 
trade off an angel of that size for nothing.’”’ Or if we had been born in 
India, we would have believed in a god with three heads. Now we be- 
lieve in three gods with one head. And so we might make a tour of the 
world and see that every superstition that could be imagined by the brain 
of man has been in some place held to be sacred. 

Now some one says, ‘‘The religion of my father and mother is good 
enough for me.’’ Suppose we all said that, where would be the progress 
of the world? We would have the rudest and most barbaric religion— 
religion which no one could believe. Ido not believe that it is showing 
real respect to our parents to believe something simply because they did. 
Every good father and every good mother wish their children to find out 
more than they knew; every good father wants his son to overcome some 
obstacle that he could not grapple with; and if you wish to reflect credit 
on your father and mother, do it by accomplishing more than they did, 
because you live in a better time. Every nation has had what you call a 
sacred record, and the older the more sacred, the more contradictory and 
the more inspired is the record. We, of course, are not an exception, and 
I propose to talk a little about what is called the Pentateuch, a book, or 
a collection of books, said to have been written by Moses. And right 
here in the commencement let me say that Moses never wrote one word 
of the Pentateuch—not one word was written until he had been dust and 
ashes for hundreds of years. But as the general opinion is that Moses 
wrote these books, I have entitled this lecture the ‘‘The Mistakes of 
Moses.” For the sake of this lecture, we will admit that he wrote it. 
Nearly every maker of religion has commenced by making the world; 
and it is one of the safest things to do, because no one can contradict as 
having been present, and it gives free scope to the imagination. These 


100 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


books, in times when there was avast difference between the educated - 


and the ignorant, became inspired and people bowed down and wor- 
shipped them. 

I saw a little while ago a Bible with immense oaken covers, with 
hasps and clasps large enough almost for a penitentiary, and I can imagine 
how that book would be regarded by barbarians in Europe when not more 
than one person in a dozen could read and write. In imagination J saw 
it carried into the cathedral, heard the chant of the priest, saw the swing- 
ing of the censer and the smoke rising; and when that Bible was put on 
the altar I can imagine the barbarians looking at it and wondering what 
influence that black book could have on their lives and future. I do not 
wonder that they imagined it was inspired. None of them could write a 
book, and consequently when they saw it they adored it; they were 
stricken with awe; and rascals took advantage of that awe. 

Now they say that the book is inspired. I do not care whether it is or 
not; the question is: Is it true? Ifitis true it don’t need to be inspired. 
Nothing needs inspiration except a falsehood or amistake. A fact never 
went into partnership with amiracle. Truth scorns the assistance of won- 
ders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you 
can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except 
another lie made for the express purpose; and, finally, some one gets tired 
of lying, and the last le will not fit the next fact, and then there isa 
chance for inspiration. Right then and there a miracle is needed. The 
real question is: In the light of science, in the light of the brain and 
heart of the nineteenth century, is this book true? The gentlemen who 
wrote it begins by telling us that God made the universe out of nothing. 
That I cannot conceive; it may be so, but I cannot conceive it. Nothing, 
regarded in the light of raw material, is, to my mind, a decided and dis- 
astrous failure. I cannot imagine of nothing being made into something, 
any more than I can of something being changed back into nothing. | 
cannot conceive of torce aside from matter, because force to be force must 
be active, and unless there is matter there is nothing for force to act upon, 
and consequently it cannot be active. SoI simply say I cannot compre- 
hend it. I cannot beileve it. I may roast for this, but it 1s my honest 
opinion. The next thing he proceeds to tell us is that God divided the 
darkness from the light; and right here let me say when I speak about 
God I simply mean the being described by the Jews. There may be 
in immensity some being beneath whose wing the universe exists, whose 
every thought is a glittering star, but I know nothing about Him,—not 
the sligtest,—and this afternoon I am simply talking about the being 
described by the Jewish people. WhenI say God, I mean Him. Moses 
describes God dividing the light from the darkness. I suppose that at 


“MISTAKES OF MOSES.” 101 


that time they must have been mixed. You can readily see how light and 
darkness can get mixed. They must have been entities. The reason I 
think so is because in that.same book I find that darkness overspread 
Egypt so thick that it could be felt, and they used to have on exhibition 
in Rome a bottle of the darkness that once overspread Egypt. The gen- 
tleman who wrote this in imagination saw God dividing hight from the 
darkness. Iam sure the man who wrote it, believed darkness to be an 
entity, a something, a tangible thing that can be mixed with light. 

The next thing that he informs us is that God divided the waters above 
the firmanent from those below the firmanent. The man who wrote that 
believed the firmanent to be a solid affair. And that is what the gods 
did. You recollect the gods came down and made love to the daughters 
of men—and I never blamed them forit. I have never read a description 
of any heaven I would not leave on the same errand. That is where the 
gods lived. Thatis where they kept the water. It was solid. That is 
the reason the people prayed for rain. They believed that an angel-could 
take a lever, raise a window and let out the desired quantity. I find inthe 
Psalms that ‘‘ He bowed the heavens and came down;’’ and we read that 
the children of men built a tower to reach the heavens and climb into the 

ode of the gods. The man who wrote that believed the firmanent to 
be solid. He knew nothing about the laws of evaporation. He did not 
know that the sun wooed with amorous kiss the waves of the sea, and 
that, disappointed, their vaporous sighs changed to tears and fell again 
asrain. ‘The next thing he tells us is that the grass began to grow, and 
the branches of the trees laughed into blossom, and the grass ran up the 
shoulder of the hills, and yet not a solitary ray of light had left the 
eternal quiver of the sun. Not a blade of grass had ever been touched 
by a gleam of light. And Ido not think that grass will grow to 
hurt without a gleam of sunshine. I think the man who wrote that 
simply made a mistake, and is excusable to a certain degree. The next 
day he made the sun and moon—the sun to rule the day and the moon to 
rule the night. Do you think the man who wrote that knew anything 
about the size of the sun? I think he thought it was about three feet in 
diameter, because I find in some book that the sun was stopped a whole 
day, to give a general named Joshua time to kill a few more Amalekites; 
and the moon was stopped also. Now it seems to me that the sun would 
give light enough without stopping the moon; but as they were in the 
stopping business they did it just for devilment. At another time, we 
read, the sun was turned ten degrees backward to convince Hezekiah 
that he was not going to die of a boil. How much easier it would have 
been to cure the boil. The man who wrote that thought the sun was two 
or three feet in diameter, and could be stopped and pulled around like the 


102 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


sun and moon in a theatre. Do you know that the sun throws out every 
second of time as much heat as could be generated by burning eleven 
thousand millions tons of coal? I don’t believe he knew that, or that he 
knew the motion of the earth. I don’t believe he knew that it was turn- 
ing on its axis at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, because if he did, 
he would have understood the immensity of heat that would have been 
generated by stopping the world. It has been. calculated by one of the 
‘best mathematicians and astronomers that to stop the world would cause 
as much heat as it would take to burn a lump of solid coal three times as 
big as the globe. And yet we find in that book that the sun was not only 
stopped, but turned back ten degrees, simply to convince a gentleman 
that he was not going to die of a boil. They may say I will be damned 
if I do not believe that, and I tell them I will if I do. 

Then he gives us the history of astronomy, and he gives it to us in five 
words: ‘‘He made the stars also.” He came very near forgetting the 
stars. Do you believe that the man who wrote that knew that there are 
stars as much larger than this earth as this earth is larger than the apple 
which Adam and Eve are said to have eaten? Do you believe that he 
knew that this world is but a speck in the shining, glittering universe of 
existence? I would gather from that that he made the stars after he g 
the world done. The telescope, in reading the infinite leaves of the 
heavens, has ascertained that light travels at the rate of 192,000 miles 
per second, and it would require millions of years to come from some of 
the stars to this earth. Yet the beams of those stars mingle in our 
atmosphere, so that if those distant orbs were fashioned when this world 
began, we must have been whirling in space not six thousand, but many 
millions of years. Do you believe the man who wrote that as a history 
ef astronomy really knew that this world was but a speck compared with 
millions of sparkling orbs? I donot. He then proceeds to tell us that 
God made fish and cattle, and that man and woman were created male 
and female. The first account stops at the second verse of the second 
chapter. You see, the Bible originally was not divided into chapters; 


the first Bible that was ever divided into chapters in our language was’ 


made in the year of grace 1550. The Bible was originally written in the 
“Hebrew language, and the Hebrew language at that time had no vowels 
in writing. It was written entirely with consonants, and without being 
divided into chapters or into verses, and there was no system of punctu- 
ation whatever. After you go home to-night write an English sen‘ence 
or two with only consonants close together, and you will find that it will 
take twice as much inspiration to read it as it did to write it. When the 
Bible was divided into verses and chapters, the divisions were not always 
correct, and so the division between the first and second chapter of Gen- 


* 


“MISTAKES OF MOSES.” 103 


esis is not in the right place. The second account of the creation com- 
mences at the third verse, and it differs from the first in two essential 
points. In the first account man is the last made; in the second, man is 
made before the beasts. In the first account, man is made ‘‘ male and 
female; ’’ in the second only a man is made, and there is no intention of —" 
making a woman whatever. 

You will find by reading that second chapter that God tried to palm 
off on Adam a beast as his helpmeet. Everybody talks about the Bible 
and nobody reads it; that is the reason it is so generally believed. I am 
probably the only man in the United States who has read the Bible 
through this year. I have wasted that time, but I had a purpose in 
view. Just read it, and you will find, about the twenty-third verse, that 
God eaused ail the animals to walk before Adam in order that he might » 
name them. And the animals came like a menagerie into town, and as 
Adam looked at all the crawlers, jumpers and creepers, this God stood by 
to see what he would call them. After this procession passed, it was 
pathetically remarked, ‘‘ Yet was thef not found any helpmeet for 
Adam.’’ Adam didn’t see anything that hecould fancy. And Iam glad 
he didn’t. If he had, there would not have been a free-thinker in this 
world; we should have all died orthodox. And finding Adam was so par- 
ticular, God had to make hima helpmeet, and having used up the nothing 
he was compelled to take part of the man to make the woman. with, and 
he took from the man arib. How did he get it? And then imagine a 
God with a bone in his hand, and‘bout to start a woman, trying to make 
up his mind whether to make a blonde or a brunette. 

Right here it is only proper that I should warn you of the consequences 
of laughing at any storyin the holy Bible. When you come to die, your 
laughing at this story will be a thorn in your pillow. As you look back 
upon the record of your life, no matter how many men you have wrecked 
and ruined, and no matter how many women you have deceived and 
deserted—all that may be forgiven you; but if you recollect that you have 
laughed at God’s book you will see through the shadows of death, 
the leering looks of fiends and the forked tongues of devils. Let meshow 
you how it will be: For instance, it is the day of judgment. When the 
man is called up by the recording secretary, or whoever does the cross- ” 
examining, he says to his soul: ‘*‘ Where are you from?’’ ‘‘I am from 
the world.’’ ‘‘ Yes, sir. What kind of aman were you?” ‘ Well, I 
don’t like to talk about’ myself.’’ ‘‘But you have to. What kind of a 
man were you?’’ ‘‘ Well, I wasa good fellow; I loved my wife, I loved 
my children. My home was my heaven; my fireside was my paradise, 
and to sit there and see the lights and shadows falling on the faces of 
those I love, that to me was aperpe‘ual joy. I mnever gave one of them a 


104 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


solitary moment of pain. I don’t owe a dollar in the world, and I left 


enouzh to pay my funeral expenses and keep the wolf of want from the © 


door of the house I loved. That is the kind ofa manlam.”’ ‘“ Did you 
belong to any church?’’ ‘‘I did not. They were too narrow for me. 
They were always expecting to be happy simply because somebody else 
was to be damned.”’ ‘‘ Well, did you believe that rib story?”’ ‘‘ What rib- 
story? Do you mean that Adam and Eve business? No, I did not. To 
tell you the God's truth, that was a little more than I could swallow.”’ 
“To hell with him! Next. Where are you from?” ‘I’m from the 
world, too.’’ ‘‘Do you belong to any church?’’ “ Yes, sir, and to the 
Young Men’s Christian Association.’’ ‘‘ What is your business?” 
**Cashier in a bank.’’ ‘‘ Did you everrun off with any of the money?” 
‘*T don’t like to tell, sir.’ ‘*‘ Well, but you haveto.”’ ‘‘ Yes, sir; I did.” 
‘‘What kind of a bank did you have?’’ ‘‘ A savings bank.’ ‘* How 
much did you run off with?’’ ‘‘One hundred thousand dollars.”’ ‘‘ Did 
you take anything else along with you?’’ ‘‘ Yes, sir.”’ ‘‘What?” “I 
took my neighbor’s wife.’’ ‘‘ Did you have a wife and children of your 
own?’ ‘Yes, sir.”’ ‘‘ And you deserted them?’’ ‘‘Oh, yes; bu’ such 
was my confidence in God that I believed he would take care of them.’’ 
‘* Have you heard of them since?’ ‘‘ No, sir.”’ ‘‘ Did you believe that 
rib story?’’ ‘‘Ah, bless your soul, yes! I believe all of it, sir; I often 
used to be sorry that there were not harder stories yet in the Bible, so that 
I could show what my faith could do.’’ “‘ You believed it, did you?” 
‘“Yes, with all my heart.’’ ‘‘Give him a harp.”’ 

I simply wanted to show you how important it is to believe these sto- 
ries. Of all the authors in the world God hates a critic the worst. Hav- 
ing got this woman done he brought her to the man, and they started 
housekeeping, and a few minutes afterward a snake came through a crack 
in the fence and commenced to talk with her on the subject of fruit. She 
was not acquainted in the neighborhood, and she did not know whether 
snakes talked or not, or whether they knew anything about the apples or 
not. Well, she was misled, and the husband ate some of those apples 
and laid it all on his wife; and there is where the mistake was made, 
God ought to have rubbed him out once. He might have known that no 
good could come of starting the world with a man like that. They were 
turned out. Then the trouble commenced, and people got worse and 
worse. God, you must recollect, was holding the reins of government, 


but he did nothing for them. He allowed them to live six hundred and 


sixty-nine years without knowing their A. B. C. He never started a 
school, not even a Sunday school. He didn’t even keep His own boys at 
home. And the world got worse every day, and finally he concluded to 


drown them. Yet that same god has the impudence to tell me how to ~ 


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“MISTAKES OF MOSES.” 105 


raise my own children. What would you think of a neighbor, who had just 
killed his babes giving you his views on domestic economy? God found 
that he could do nothing with them and He said: ‘‘I will drown them 
all, except a few.’? And He picked out a fellow by the name of Noah, 
that had been a bachelor for five hundred years. If I had to drown any- 
body, I would have drowned him. I believe that Noah had then been 
married something like one hundred years. God told him to build a boat, 
and he built one five hundred feet long, eighty or ninety feet broad and 
fifty-five feet high, with one door shutting on the outside, and one win- 
dow twenty-two inches square. If Noah had any hobby in the world it 
was vetilation. Then into this ark he put acertain number of all the 
animals in the world. Naturalists have ascertained that at that time 
there were at least eleven hundred thousand insects necessary to go into 
the ark, about forty thousand mammalia, sixteen hundred reptilia, to say 
nothing about the mastodon, the elephant and the animalcule, of which 
thousands live upon a single leaf and which cannot be seen by the naked 
eye. Noah had no microscope, and yet he had to pick them out By pairs. 
You have no idea the trouble that man had. Some say that the flood 
was not universal, that it was partial. Why then did God say: ‘‘I will 
destroy every living thing beneath the heavens.’’ If it was partial why 
did Noah save the birds? An ordinary bird, tending strictly to business, 
_¢an beata partial flood. . Why did he put the birds in there—the eagles, the 
vultures, the condors—if it was only a partial flood? And how did he 
getthem in there? Were they inspired to go there, or did he drive them 
up? Did the polar bear leave his home of ice and start for the tropics 
inquiring for Noah; or could the kangaroo come from Australia unless 
he was inspired, or somebody was behind him? ‘Then there are animals 
on this hemisphere not on that. How did he get them across? And 
there are some animals which would be very unpleasant in an ark unless 
the ventilation was very perfect. 

When he got the animals in the ark, God shut the door and Noah 
pulled down the window. And then it began to rain, and it kept on 
raining until the water went twenty-nine feet over the highest mountain. 
Chimborazo, then as now, lifted its head above the clouds, and then as 
now, there sat the condor. And yet the waters rose and rose over every 
mountain in the world—twenty-nine feet above the highest peaks, cov- 
ered with snow and ice. How dee» were these waters? About five and 
a half miles. How long did it rain? Forty days. How much did it 
have torainsaday? About eight hundred feet. How is that for damp- 
ness? No wonder they said the windows of the heavens were open. If I 
had been there I would have said the whole side of the house was out. How 
long were they in this ark? A year and ten days, floating around with 


* 106 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


no rudder, no sail, nobody on the outside at all. The window was shut, 
and there was no door, except the one that shut on the outside. Who aa 
ran this ark—who took care of it? Finally it came down on Mount Ararat, : 
a peak seventeen thousand feet above the level of the sea, with about 


three thousand feet of snow, and it stopped there simply to give the’ani- +8 
mals from the tropics achance. Then Noah opened the window and got as 
a breath of fresh air, and he let out all the animals; and then Noah took , +a 
a drink, and God made a bargain with him that He would not drown us ee 


any more, and He put a rainbow in the clouds and said: ‘‘ When I see 

that I will recollect that I have promised not to drown you.’’ Because 

if it was not for that He is apt to drown us at any moment. Now can _ oa 

anybody believe that that is the originof the rambow? Are you not . 

all familiar with the natural causes which bring- those beautiful arches 

before our eyes? Then the people started out again, and they were as 

bad as before. Here let me ask why God did not make Noah in the first 

place? He knew he would have to drown Adam and Eve and all his NY 

family® Then another thing, why did He want to drown the animals? 3 

What had they done? What crime had they committed? It is very 

hard to answer these questions—that is, fora man who has only been 

born once. After a while they tried to build a tower to get into heaven, é% 

and the gods heard about it and said: ‘‘ Let’s go down and see what man ae 

is up to.’” They came, and found things a great deal worse than they 

thought, and thereupon they confounded the language to prevent them 

succeeding, so that the fellow up above could not shout down ‘‘ mortar”’ 

or ‘‘ brick’ to the one below, and they had to give it up. Is it possible 

that any one believes that that is the reason why we have the variety of 

languages in the world? Do you know that language is born of human be 

experience, and is a physical science? Do you know that every word has 

been suggested in some way by the feelings or observations of man—that 

there are words as tender as the dawn, as serene as the stars, and others 

as wild as the beasts? Do you know that language is dying and being 

born continually—that every language has its cemetery and cradle, its 

bud and blossom, and withered leaf? Man has loved, enjoyed and suf- | 

fered, and language is simply the expression he gives those experiences. yd 
Then the world began to divide, and the Jewish nation was started. 

Now I want to say that at one time your ancestors, like mine, were bar- 

barians. Ifthe Jewish people had to write these books now they would be 

civilized books, and I do not hold them responsible for what their ancestors x 

did. We find the Jewish people first in Canaan, and there were seventy 34 

of them, counting Joseph and his children already in Egypt. They lived he 

two hundred and fifteen years, and they then went down into Egypt and me i) 

stayed there two hundred and fifteen years; they were four hundred and eae 


“MISTAKES OF MOSES.” 107 


thirty years in Canaan and Egypt. How many did they have when 
they went to Egypt? Seventy. How many were they at the end 
of two hundred and fifteen years? Three millions. That is a good 
many. We had at the time of the Revolution in this country three mil- 
lions of people. Since that time there have been four doubles, until we 
have forty-eight millions to-day. How many would the Jews number at 
the same ratio in two hundred and fifteen years? Call it eight doubles 
and we have forty thousand. But instead of forty thousand they had 
three millions. How doI know they had three millions? Because they 
had six hundred thousand men of war. For every honest voter in the 
State of Illinois there will be five other people, and there are always more 
voters than men of war. They must have had at the lowest possible esti- 
‘ mate three millions of people. Is that true? Is there a minister in the 
city of Chicago ‘that will certify to his own idiocy by claiming that they 
could have increased to three millions by that time? If there is, let him 
say so. Do not let him talk about the civilizing influence of a lie. 

When they got into the desert they took acensus to see how many first- 
born children there were. They found they had twenty-two thousand 
two hundred and seventy-three first born males. It is reasonable to sup- 
pose there was about the same number of first born girls, or forty-five 
thousand first born children. There must have been about as many 
mothers as first-born children. Dividing three millions by forty-five 
thousand mothers, and you will find that the women in Israel had to have 
on the average sixty-eight children apiece. Some stories are too thin. 
This is too thick. Now, we know that among three million people there 
will be about three hundred births a day; and according to the Old Testa- 
ment, whenever a child was born the motier had to make a sacrifice—a 
sin-offering for the crime of having been a mother. Ifthereisin this uni- 
verse anything that is infinitely pure, itis a mother with her child in her 
arms. Every woman had to have a sacrifice of a couple of doves, a couple 
of pigeons, and the priests had to eat those pigeons in the most holy place. 
At that time there were at: least three hundred births a day, and the priests 
had to cook and eat those pigeons in the most holy place; and at that 
time there were only three priests. Two hundred birds apiece per day! 
I look upon them as the champion bird-eaters of the world. 

Then where were these Jews? They were ®pon the desert of Sinai; 
and Sahara compared to that isagarden. Imagine an ocean of lava, torn 
by storm and vexed by tempest, suddenly gazed at by a Gorgon and 
changed to stone. Such was the desertof Sinai. The whole supplies of 
the world could not maintain three millions of people on the desert of 
Sinai for forty years. It would cost one hundred thousand millions of 
dollars, and would bankrupt Christendom. And yet there they were 


108 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


with flocks and herds—so many that they sacrificed over one hundred and 
fifty thousand first-born lambs at one time. It would require millions of 
acres to support those flocks, and yet there was no blade of grass, and 
there is no account of it raining baled hay. They sacrificed one hundred 
and fifty thousand lambs, and the blood had all to be sprinkled on the 
altar within two hours, and there were only three priests. They would 
have to sprinkle the blood of twelve hundred and fifty lambs per minute. 
Then all the people gathered in front of the tabernacle eighteen feet deep. 
Three millions of people would make acolumn six miles long. Some 
reverend gentlemen say they were ninety feet deep. Well, that would 
make a column of over a mile. 

Where were these people going? They were going to the Holy Land. 
How large was it? Twelve thousand square miles—one-fifth the size of 
Ilinois—a frightful country, covered with rocks and desolation. There 
never was a land agent in the city of Chicago that would not have blushed 
with shame to have described that land as flowing with milk and honey. 
Do you believe that God Almighty ever went into partnership with 
hornets? Is it necessary unto salvation? God said to the Jews: “I will 
send hornets before you, to drive out the Canaanites.”’ How woulda 
hornet know a Canaanite? Is it possible that God inspired the hornets 
—that he granted letters of marque and reprisal to hornets? I am 
willing to admit that nothing in the world would be better calculated to 
make a man leave his native country than a few hornets attending 
strictly to business. God said ‘‘ Kill the Canaanites slowly.”” Why? 
‘* Lest the beasts of the field increase upon you.’’ How many Jews were 
there? Three millions. Going to a country, how large? ‘Twelve thou- 
sand square miles. But were there nations already in this Holy Land? 
Yes, there were seven nations ‘‘mightier than the Jews.’’ Say there 
would be twenty-one millions when they got there, or twenty-four millions 
with themselves. Yet they were told to kill them slowly, lest the beasts 
of the field increase upon them. Is there a man in Chicago that believes 


that! Then what does he teach it to little children for? Let him tell 


the truth. 

So the same God went into partnership with snakes. The children 
of Israel lived on manna—one account says all the time, and another only 
a little while. That ig*the reason there is a chance for commentaries, 
and you can exercise faith. If the book was reasonable everybody could 
get to heaven ina moment. But whenever it looks as if it could not be 
that way and you believe, you are almost a saint, and when you know it 
is mot that way and believe you area saint. He fed them on manna. 
Now manna is very peculiar stuff. It would melt in the sun, and yet 
they used to cook it by seething and baking. I would as soon think of 


a we ORS 


“MISTAKES OF MOSES.” 109 


frying snow or boiling icicles. But this manna had other peculiar qual- 
ities. It shrank*to an omer, no matter how much they gathered, and 
swelled up to an omer, no matter how little they gathered. What a 
magnificent thing manna would be for the currency, shrinking and swel- 
ling according to the volume of business! There was not a change in the 
bill of fare for forty years, and they knew that God could just as well give 
them three square meals aday. ‘They remembered about the cucumbers, 
and the melons, and the leeks and the onions of Egypt, and they said: 
“Our souls abhoreth this light bread.’’ Then this God got mad—you 
know cooks are always touchy—and thereupon He sent snakes to bite 
the men, women and children. He also sent them quails in wrath and 
anger, and while they had the flesh between their teeth, He struck 
thousends of them dead. He always acted in that way, all of a sudden. 
People had no chance to explain—no chance to move for a new trial— 
nothing. I want to know if it is reasonable he should kill people for 
asking for one change of diet in forty years. Suppose you had been 
boarding with an old lady for forty years, and she never had a solitary 
thing on her table but hash, and one morning you said: ‘‘ My soul abhor- 
eth hash.’’ What would you say if she let a basketful of rattlesnakes 
upon you? Now is it possible for people to believe this? The Bible 
says that their clothes did not wax old, they did not get shiny at the 
knees or elbows; and their shoes did not wear out. They grew right 
along with them. ‘The little boy starting out with his first pants grew 
up and his pants grew with him. Somecommentators have insisted that 
angels attended to their wardrobes. I nevercould believeit. Just think 
of one angel hunting another and saying: ‘‘ There goes another button.’’ 
I cannot believe it. 

There must be a mistake somewhere or somehow. Do you believe 
the real God—if there is one—ever killed a man for making hair-oil? 
And yet you find in the Pentateuch that God gave Moses a recipe for 
making hair-oil to grease Aaron's beard; and said if anybody made the 
same hair-oil he should be killed. And He gave hima formula for 
making ointment, and He said if anybody made ointment like that he 
should be killed. I think that is carrying patent-laws to excess. ‘There 
must be some mistake about it. I cannot imagine the infinite Creator 
of all the shining worlds giving a recipe for hair-oil. Do you_ believe 
that the real God came down to Mount Sinai with a lot of patterns for 
making a tabernacle—patterns for tongs, for snuffers, and such things? 
Do you believe that God came down on that mountain and told Moses 
how to cut a coat, and how it should be trimmed? What would an infi- 
nite God care on which side he cut the breast, what color the fringe was, 
or how the buttons were placed? Do you believe God told Moses to 


' 


110 MISTAKES OF INGLESOLL. 


make curtains of fine linen? Where did they get their flax in the des- 
ert? How did they weave it? Did He tell him to make things of gold, 
silver and precious stones, when they hadn’t them? Is it possible that 
God told them not to eat any fruit until after the fourth year of planting 
the trees? You see all these things were written hundreds of years after- 
wards, and the priests, in order to collect the tithes, dated the laws back. 
They did not say, ‘‘ This is our law,’’ but, ‘‘ Thus said God to Moses in 
the wilderness.”” Now, can you believe that? Imagine ascene: The 
eternal God tells Moses, ‘‘ Here is the way I want you to consecrate my 
priests. Catch a sheep and cut his throat.’’ I never could understand 
why God wanted a sheep killed just because a man had done a mean 
trick; perhaps it was because his priests were fond of mutton. He tells 
Moses further to take some of the blood and put it on his right thumb, a 
little on his right ear, and a little on his right big toe? Do you believe 
God ever gave such instructions for the consecration of His priests? If 
you should see the South Sea Islanders going through such a perform- 
ance you could not keep your face straight. And will you tell me that it 
had to be done in order to consecrate a man to the service of the infinite 
God? Supposing the blood got on the left toe? 

Then we find in his book how God went to work to make the Egyp- 
tians let the Israelites go. Suppose we wish to make a treaty with the 
mikado of Japan, and Mr. Hayes sent a commissioner there; and suppose 
he should employ Hermann, the wonderful German, to go along with 
him; and when they came in the presence of the mikado Hermann threw 
down an umbrella, which changed into a turtle, and the commissioner 
said: ‘‘ That is my certificate.’ You would say the country is disgraced. 
You would say the president of a republic like this disgraces himself with 
jugglery. Yet we are told God sent Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh, 
and when they got there Moses threw down a stick which turned into a 
snake. That God is a juggler—he is the infinite prestidigitator. Is that 
possible? Was that really a snake, or was it the appearance of a snake? 
If it was the appearance of a snake, it was a fraud. Then the necroman- 
cers of Egypt were sent for, and they threw down sticks, which turned 
into snakes, but those were not so large as Moses’ snakes, which swal- 
lowed them. I maintain that it is just as hard to make small snakes as 
it is to make large ones; the only difference is that to make large snakes 
either larger sticks or more practice is required. 

Do you believe that God rained hail on the innocent cattle, killing them 
in the highways and in the field? Why should he inflict punishment on 
cattle for something their owners had done? Icould never have any 


respect for a God that would so inflict pain upon a brute beast simply on ~ 


account of the crime of its owner. Is it possible that God worked mira- 


- 


“MISTAKES OF MOSES.” 111 


cles to convince Pharaoh that slavery was wrong? Why did he not tell 
Pharaoh that any nation founded on slavery could not stand? Why did he 
not tell him, ‘‘ Your government is founded on slavery, and it will go down, 
and the sands of the desert will hide from the view of man your temples, 
your altars, and your fanes?’’ Why did he not speak about the infamy 
of slavery? Because he believed in the infamy of slavery himself. Can 
we believe that God will allow a man to give his wife the right of divorce- 
ment-and make the mother of his children a wanderer and a vagrant. 
There is not one word about woman in the Old Testament except the word 
of shame and humiliation. The God of the Bible does not think woman 
is as good as man. She was never worth mentioning. It did not take 
the pains to recount the death of the mother of us all. I have no respect 
for any book that does not treat woman as the equal of man. And if 
there is any God in this universe who thinks more of me than he thinks 
of my wife, he is not well acquainted with both of us. And yet they say 
that that was done on account of the hardness of their hearts; and that was 
done in a community where the law was so fierce that it stoned a man to 
death for picking up sticks on Sunday. Would it not have been better 
to stone to death every man who abused his wife and allowed them to 
pick up sticks on account of the hardness of their hearts? If God wanted 
to take those Jews from Egypt to the land of Canaan, why didn’t He do 
it instantly? If He was going to doa miracle, why didn’t He do one 
worth talking about? 

After God had lnlled all the first-born in Egypt, after he had killed all 
the cattle, still Egypt could raise an army that could put to flight six hun- 
dred thousand men. And because this God overwhelmed the Egyptian 
army, he bragged about it for a thousand years, repeatedly calling the 
attention of the Jews to the fact that he overthrew Pharaoh and his hosts. 
Did he help much with their six hundred thousand men? We find by the 
records of the day that the Egyptian standing army at that time was 
never more than one hundred thousand men. Must we believe all these 
stories in order to get to Heaven when we die? Must we judge of aman’s 
character by the number of stories he believes? Are we to get to Heaven 
by creed or by deed? That is the question. Shall we reason, or shall we 
simply believe? Ah, but they say the Bible is not inspired about those 
little things. The Bible says the rabbit and the hare chew the cud. But 
they donot. They have a tremulous motion of the lip. But the Being 
that made them says they chew the cud. The Bible, therefore, is not 
inspired in natural history. Is it inspired in its astrology? No. Well, 
what is it inspired in? Initslaw? ‘Thousands of people say that if it 
had not been for the ten commandments we would not have known any 
better than to rob and steal. Suppose a man planted an acre of potatoes, 


112 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


hoed them all summer, and dug them in the fall; and suppose a man had 
sat upon the fence all the time and watched him; do you believe it would 
be necessary for that man to read the ten commandments to find out who, 
in his judgment, had aright to take those potatoes? All laws against 
larceny have been made by industry to protect the fruits of its labor. 
Why is there a lawagainst murder? Simply because a large majority of 
people object to being murdered. That is all. And all these laws were 
in force thousands of years before that time. 

One of the commandments said they should not make any graven 
images, and that was the death of art in Palestine. No sculptor has 
ever enriched stone with the divine forms of beauty in that country; and 
any commandment that is the death of artis not a good commandment. 
But they say the Bible is morally inspired; and they tell me there is no 
civilization without this Bible. Then God knows that just as well as you 
do. God always knew it, and if you can’t civilize a nation without a 
Bible, why didn’t God give every nation just one Bible to start with? 
Why did God allow hundreds of thousands and billions of billions to go 
down to hell just for the lack of a Bible? They say that it is morally in- 
spired. Well, let us examine it. I want to be fair about this thing, be- 
cause I am willing to stake my salvation or damnation upon this ques- 
tion—whether the Bible is true or not. I say itis not; and upon that I 
am willing to wager my soul. Is there a woman here who believes in the 
institution of polygamy? Is there a man here who believes in that in- 
famy? You say: *‘No, we do not.’’ Then you are better than your 
God was four thousand years ago. Four thousand years ago he believed 
in it, taught it and upheld it. I pronounce it and denounce it the infa- 
my of infamies. It robs our language of every sweet and tender word 
in it. Ittakes the fireside away forever: It takes the meaning out of the 
words father, mother, sister, brother, and turns the temple of love into 
a vile den where crawl the slimy snakes of lust and hatred, I was in 
Utah a little while ago, and was on the mountain where God used to talk 
to Brigham Young. He never said anything tome. I said it was just as 
reasonable that God in the nineteenth century should talk to a polygamist 
in Utah as it was that four thousand years ago, on Mount Sinai, he talked 
to Moses upon that hellish and damnable question. 


I have no love for any God who believes in polygamy. Thereisno - 


heaven on this earth save where the one woman loves the one man ang 
the one man loves the one woman. I guess itis not inspired on the 
polygamy question. Maybe it is inspired about religious liberty. God 
says that if anybody differs with you about rellgion, ‘‘Inill him.’’ He 
told His peculiar people, ‘‘If any one teaches a different religion, kill 
bim!’’ He did not say, ‘‘ Try and convince him that he is wrong,’’ but 


“MISTAKES OF MOSES.” 113 


‘ill him!’’ He did not say, ‘‘l amin the miracle business, and I will 
convince him;”’ but ‘‘ killhim.’’ He said to every husband, ‘‘If your wife, 
that you love as you love your own soul, says, ‘let us go and worship 
other gods,’ then ‘thy hand shali be first upon her and she shall be. 
stoned with stones until she dies.’’’ Well, now, I hate a God of that kind, 
and I cannot think of being nearer heaven than to be away from Him. A 
God tells a man to kill his wife simply because. she differs with him on 
religion! Ifthe real God were to tell me to kill my wife, I would not do 
it. Ifyou had lived in Palestine at that time, and your wife—the mother of 
your children—had woke up at night and said: ‘‘I am tired of Jehovah. 
He is always turning up that board-bill. He is always telling about 
whipping the Egyptians. He is always killing somebody. I am tired of 
Him. Let us worship the sun. The sun has clothed the world in beauty; 
it has covered the earth with green and flowers; by its divine light I first 
saw your face; its light has enabled me to look into the eyes of my beautiful 
babe. Let us worship the sun, father and mother of light and love and 
joy.”’ Then what would it be your duty to do—kill her? Do you be- 
lieve any real god ever did that? Your hand should be first upon her, 
and when you took up some ragged rock and hurled it against the white 
bosom filled with love for you, and saw running away the red current of 
her sweet life, then you would look up to heaven and receive the con- 
gratulations of the infinite fiend whose commandments you had to obey. 
I guess the Bible was not inspired about religious liberty. Let me ask 
you right here: Suppose, as a matter of fact, God gave those laws to the 
Jews and told them ‘‘ whenever a man preaches a different religion, kill 
him,’’ and suppose that afterwards the same God took upon himself 

“flesh, and came to the world and taught and preached a different re- 
ligion, and the Jews crucified him—did he not reap exactly what he 
sowed ? . 

May be this book is inspired about war. God told the ‘Israelites to 
overrun that country, and kill every man, woman and child for defending 
their native land. Kill the old men? Yes. Killthe women? Certainly. 
And the little dimpled babes in the cradle, that smile and coo in the face 
of murder—dash out their brains; that is the will of God. ‘Will you tell 
me that any god ever commanded such infamy? Kill the men and the 
women, and the young men and the babes! ‘‘ What shall we do with 
the maidens?’’ ‘‘Give them to the rabble murderers!’’ Do you believe 
that God ever allowed the roses of love and the violets of modesty that 
shed their perfume in the heart of a maiden to be trampled beneath the 
brutal feet of lust? If there is any God, I pray him to write in the book 
of eternal remembrance opposite to my name, that I denied that lie. 


* Whenever a woman reads a Bible and comes to that passage, she ought 


8 


114 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


to throw the book from her in contempt and scorn. Do you tell me that 


any decent god would do that? What would the devil have done under 


the same circumstances? Just think of it; and yet that is the God that 
we want to get into the Constitution. Thatis the God we teach our 
children about, so that they will be sweet and tender, amiable and kind! 
That monster—that fiend! I guess the Bible is not inspired about relig- 
ious liberty, nor about war. 


Then, if itis not inspired about these things, maybe it is inspired 


about slavery. God tells the Jews to buy up the children of the heathen 
round about. and they should be servants for them. What is a ‘‘ser- 
vant?’’ If they struck a ‘‘servant’’ and he died immediately, punish- 
ment was to follow; but if the injured man should linger a while, there 
was no punishment, because the servant represented their money! Do 
you believe that it is right—that God made one man to work for another 
and to receive pay in rations? Do you believe God said that a whip on 
the naked back was the legal tender for labor performed? Is it possible 
that the real God ever gave such infamous, blood-thirsty laws? What 
more does he say? When the time of a married slave expired, he could 
not take his wife and children with him. Then if the slave did not wish 
to desert his family, he had his ears pierced with an awl, and became his 
master’s property forever. Do you believe that God ever turned the 
dimpled checks of little children into iron chains to hold a man in slave- 
ry? Do you know that a God like that would not make a respectable 
devil? I want none of his mercy. I want no part and no lot in the 
heaven of such a God. I will go to /{perdition, where there is human 
sympathy. The only voice we have ever had from either of those other 


worlds came from hell. There was arich man who prayed his brothers * 


to attend to Lazarus so that they might ‘‘ not come to this place.’’ That 
is the only instance, so far as we know, of souls across the river having 
any sympathy. And I would rather bein hell, asking for water, than in 
heaven denying that petition. Well, what is this book inspired about? 
Where does the inspiration come from? Why was it that so many ani- 
mals were killed? It was simply to make atonement for man—that is all. 
They killed something that had not committed a crime, in order that the 
one who had committed the crime might be acquitted. Based upon that 
idea is the atonement of the Christian religion. That is the reason I 
attack this book—because it is the basis of another infamy, viz: that one 
man can be good for another, or that one man can sin for another. I 
deny it. You have got to be good for yourself; you have got to sin for 
yourself. The trouble about the atonement is, that it saves the wrong 
man. For instance, I kill some one. Heis agood man. He loves his 
wife and children and tries to make them happy; but he is not a Chris- 


“MISTAKES OF MOSES.” 115 


tian, and he goes to hell. Just as soon as I am convicted and cannot get 
a pardon I get religion, and I go to heaven. The hand of mercy cannot 
reach down through the shadows of hell to my victim. 

There is no atonement for the saint—only for the sinner and the crim- 
inal. The atonement saves the wrong man. I have said that I would 
never make a lecture at all without attacking this doctrine.. I did not 
care what I started outon. I was always going to attack this doctrine. 
And in my conclusion I want to draw you a few pictures of the Christian 
heaven. But before I do that I want to say the rest I have to say about 
Moses. I want you to understand that the Bible was never printed until 
1488. I want you to know that up to that time it was in manuscript, in 
possession of those who could change it if they wished; and they did 
change it, because no two ever agreed. Much of it was in the waste bas- 
ket of credulity, in the open mouth of tradition, and in the dull ear of 
memory. I want you also to know that the Jews themselves never agreed 
as to what books were inspired, and that there were a lotof books written 
that were not incorporated in the Old Testament. I want you to know 
that two or three years before Christ, the Hebrew manuscript was trans- 
lated into Greek, and that the original from which the translation was 
. made has never been seen since. Some Latin Bibles were found in Africa 
but no two agreed; and then they translated the Septuagint into the lan- 
guages of Europe, and no two agreed. Henry VIII. took a little time 
between murdering his wives to see that the Word of God was translated 
correctly. You must recollect that we are indebted to murderers for our 
Bibles and our creeds. Constantine, who helped on the good work in its 
early stage, murdered his wife and child, mingling their blood with the 
blood of the Savior. 

The Bible that Henry VIII. got up did not suit, and then his daughter, 
the murderess of Mary, Queen of Scotts, got up another edition, which also 
did not suit; and finally, that philosophical idiot, King James, prepared 
the edition which we now have. There areat least one hundred thousand 
srrors in the Old Testament, but everybody sees that it is not enough to 
invalidate its claim to infallibility. But these errors are gradually being 
fixed, and hereafter the prophet will be fed by Arabs instead of ‘‘ ravens,’’ 
and Samson’s three hundred foxes will be three hundred ‘‘ sheaves ’’ 
already bound, which were fired and thrown into the standing wheat. I 
want you all to know that there was no contemporaneous literature at the 
fime the Bible was composed, and that the Jews were infinitely ignorant 
im their day and generation—that they were isolated by bigotry and wick- 
edness from the rest of the world. I want you to know that there are 
fourteen hundred millions of people in the world; and that with all the 
talk and work of the societies, only one hundred and twenty millions have 


116 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


got Bibles. 1 want you to understand that not one person in one hundred — 


in this world ever read the Bible, and no two ever understood it alike who. 
did read it, and that no one person probably ever understood it aright. 
I want you to understand that where this Bible has been, man has hated 
his brother—there have been dungeons, racks, thumbscrews, and the 
sword. I want you to know that the cross has been in partnership with 
the sword, and that the religion of Jesus Christ was established by mur- 
derers, tyrants and hypocrites. I want you to know that the church 
carried the black flag. Then talk about the civilizing influence of this 
religion! 

Now, I want to give an idea or two in regard to the Christian’s heaven. 
Of all the selfish things in this world, itis one man wanting to get to. 
heaven, caring nothing what becomes of the: rest of mankind. ‘If I 
can only get my little soulin!’’ I have always noticed that the people 
who have the smallest souls make the most fuss about getting them saved. 
Here is what we are taught by the church to-day. We are taught by it 
that fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters can all be happy in heaven, 
no matter who may be in hell; that the husband can be happy there: 
with the wife that would have died for him at any moment of his life in 
hell. But they say, ‘‘ We den’t believe in fire. What we believe in now 
is remorse.’’ What will you have remorse for? For the mean things 
you have done when you are in hell? Will you have any remorse for the 
mean things you have done when you are in heaven? Or will you be so: 
good then that you won't care how you used to be? Don’t you see what 
an infinitely mean belief that is? I tell you to-day that, no matter in 
what heaven you may be, no matter in what star you are spending 
the summer, if you meet another man whom you haye wronged you 
will drop a little behind in the tune. And, no matter in what part 
of hell you are, and you meet some one whom you have succored, whose 
nakedness you have clothed, and whose famine you have fed, the fire will 
cool up a little. According to this Christian doctrine, when you are in 
heaven you won’t care how mean you were once. What must be the 
social condition of a gentleman in heaven who will admit that he never 
would have been there if he had not got scared? What must be the 
social position of an angel who will always admit that if another had not 
pitied him he ought to have been damned? Is it acompliment to an infi- 
nite God to say that every being He ever made deserved to be damned 
the minute He got him done, and that He will damn everybody He has 
not had a chance to make over? Is it possible that somebody else can be 
good for me, and that this doctrine of the atonement is the only ancho 
for the human soul? 

For instance: here is a man seventy years of age, who has been @ 


—_—- 


“MISTAKES OF MOSES.” 117 


splendid fellow and lived according to the laws of nature. He has got 
about him splendid children, whom he has loved and cared for with all 
his heart. But he did not happen to believe in this Bible; he did not 
believe in the Pentateuch. He did not believe that because some child- 
ren made fun of a gentleman who was short of hair, God sent two bears 
and tore the little darlings to pieces. He had a tender heart, and he 
thought about the mothers who would take the pieces, the bloody frag- 
ments of the children, and press them to their bosom in a frenzy of grief; 
he thought about their wails and lamentations, and could not believe 
that God was such an infinite monster. That was all he thought, but he 
went to Hell. Then, there is another man who made a hell on earth for 
his wife, who had to be taken to the insane asylum, and his children 
were driven from home and wére wanderers and vagrants in the world. 
But just between the last sin and the last breath, this fellow got religion, 
and he never did another thing except to take his medicine. He never 
did a solitary human being a favor, and he died and went to heaven. 
Do n’t you think he would be astonished to see that other man in hell, 
and say to himself, ‘‘Is it possible that such a splendid character should 
bear such fruit, and that all my rascality at last has brought me next to 
God?”’ 

Or, let us put another ease. You were onte alone in the desert—no 
provisions, no water, no hope. Just when your life was at its lowest ebb, 
a man appeared, gave you water and food and brought you safely out. 
How you would bless that man. Time rolls on. You die and go to 
heaven; and one day you see through the black night of hell, the friend 
who saved your life, begging for a drop of water to cool his parched lips. 
He cries to you, ‘‘ Remember what I did in the desert—give me to drink.”’ 
How mean, how contemptible you would feel to see his suffering and be 
unable to relieve him. But this isthe Christian heaven. We sit by the 
fireside and see the flames and the sparks fly up the chimney—everybody 
happy, and the cold wind and sleet are beating on the window, and out 
on the doorstep is a mother with a child on her breast freezing. How . 
happy it makes a fireside, that beautiful contrast. And we say ‘‘God is 
good,’’ and there we sit, and she sits and moans, not one night but for- 
ever. Or we are sitting at the table with our wives and children, every- 
body eating, happy and delighted, and Famine comes and pushes out its 
shriveled palms, and, with hungry eyes, implores us for a crust. How 
that would increase the appetite! And yet that is the Christian heaven. 
Don’t you see that these infamous doctrines petrify the human heart? 
And I would have every one who hears me, swear that he will never con- 
tribute another dollar to build another church, in which is taught such 
infamous lies. I want every one of you to say that you never will, direct- 


118 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


ly or indirectly, give a dollar to any man to preach that falsehood. It 
has done harm enough. It has covered the world with blood. It has 
filled the asylums for the insane. It has cast a shadow in the heart, in 
the sunlight of every good and tender man and woman. I say let us rid 
the heavens of this monster, and write upon the dome ‘‘ Liberty, love 
and law.”’ | 

No matter what may come to me or what may come to you, let us do 
exactly what we believe to be right, and let us give the exact thought in 
our brains. Rather than have this Christianity true, I would rather all 
the gods would destroy themselves this morning. I would rather the 
whole universe would go to nothing, if such a thing were possible, this 
instant. Rather than have the glittering dome of pleasure reared on the 
eternal abyss of pain, I would see the utter and eternal destruction of this 
universe. I would rather see the shining fabric of our universe crumble 
to unmeaning chaos, and take itself where oblivion broods and memory 
forgets. I would rather the blind Samson of some imprisoned force, re- 
leased by thoughtless chance, should so rack and strain this world that 
man in stress and straint, in astonishment and fear, should suddenly fall 
back to savagery and barbarity. I would rather that this thrilled and 
thrilling globe, shorn of all life, should in its cycles rub the wheel, the 
parent star, on which the light should fall as fruitlessly as falls the gaze 
of love on death, than to have this infamous doctrine of eternal punish- 
ment true; rather than have this infamous selfishness of a heaven for a 
few and a hell for the many established as the word of God! 

One world at a time is my doctrine. Let us make some one happy 
here. Happiness is the interest that a decent action draws, and the more 
decent actions you do, the larger your income will be. Let every man 
try to make his wife happy, his children happy. Let every man try to 
make every day ajoy, and God cannot afford to damn suchaman. I 
cannot help God; I cannot injure God. I can help people; I can injure 
people. Consequently humanity is the only real religion. 

I cannot better close this lecture than by quoting four lines eos 
Robert Burns: 

“To make a happy fireside clime 
To weans and wife— 


That's the true pathos and sublime 
Of human life.” 


MISTAKES: 


OF 


Not ROSOL 


AS SHOWN BY 


Rev. W. F. Crafts, BisHop CHARLES E. CHENEY, CHAPLAIN C, C 
McCasg, D.D., ARTHUR SwazeEy, D.D., ROBERT CoLLYER, D.D., 
FRED. PERRY POWERS, AND OTHERS. 


INCLUDING INGERSOLL’S LECTURE 


SIULLS,. AND HIS ANSWER 


TO 


Pror. Swinc, Dr. RypER, Dr. HERForD, DR. COLLYER, 
Dr. THomAs, Dr. KoEHLER, AND OTHER CRITICS. 


ALSO 


INGERSOLL’S ORATION AT HIS BROTHER’S GRAVE, 


TOGETHER WITH 


HENRY WARD BEECHER’S AND HON. ISAAC N. ARNOLD’S 


COMMEN''S ON THE SAME. 


EDITED BY 


J. B. McCLURE. 


CHICAGO: 
RHODES & McCLURE, PUBLISHERS. 
1880. 


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Not satisfied with his recent parade of the “Mistakes of 
Moses” before the Chicago public (which called forth our 
first book, entitled the ‘ Mistakes of Ingersoll, as Shown By 
Prof. Swing and Others”), Mr. I. has since returned and 
delivered another lecture against the Bible and against his 
critics, Prof. Swing, Dr. Ryder, Dr. Herford and Dr. 
Collyer. These last efforts of Mr. Ingersoll have called forth 
the present volume, in which will be found additional 
“Mistakes,” as shown by Rev. W. F. Crafts, who is the 
well-known successor of Dr. Tiffany in Trinity Methodist 
Episcopal’ Church; by Chaplain C. C. McCabe, Bishop 
Cheney, Arthur Swazey, D.D., Robert Collyer, D.D., whose 
names are all familar to the public; and by Fred Perry 
Powers, who is favorably identified with Chicago journalism. 
The “commendable fairness,” mentioned by the press, in 
printing both the “text and replies” in the former volume; 
requires in this instance, also the text, which is given at the 
close and which ineludes Mr. Ingersoll’s replies to Prof. 
Swing, Dr. Ryder, Brooke Herford and others. 

J. B. McCLURE., 

Cuicaao, May 17, 1879. 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by J. B. McCiture & R. 8S. 
Rucpgs, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 


OTTAWAY & COMPANY, DoNOBUE & HENNEBERRY, 
Printers. Binders, 


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. PAGE 
W. F. Crarts’ REPLY : 7 
Ingersollism Outlined—‘ Ten Points’ , instead of 3 Five ”—Infi- 
del Protoplasm {i 
First Point in the eee seantencal Hoots of the Teese Ones 
A Theological Rip Van Winkle : 10 
Ingersoll Mistakes a Part for the Whale—Groas Wichanrenanth: 
tions ; 12 
The Great Ingersoll ‘Boomberang-—How ie Works— Further Mis. 
representations Examined ; 3 : : A 13 
Misrepresenting Bible Passages ‘ } é : ; 14 
Sun and Moon Standing Still. } i : : 15 
Hell A , : Bhs ; Pine e 
The Present vs. the Future * ‘ ‘ : 17 
Ingersoll’s Horrible Estimate of Truth i ; 19 
é The Bible the Best of Books, and Christ the Best of Men ; 20 


Something New if True—Infidelity the Essential Factor in Pro- 
gressive Civilization—But Coleridge, Wm. H. Seward, Bis- 
marck, and other Great Statesman can not see it—Civilization 
goes only with Christianity — ; 21 

Marvelous Power of Time and Circumatance—Tragic Effect of 
Tso-thermal Lines—Peoria Mud Necessarily the Seventh 


Heaven as Ingersoll Sees it 24 
Law is Ingersoll’s God : 26 
Liberty and Infidelity—What De Toequeville Says About it 26 
Woman—TIngersoll’s Theory at Variance with Facts 27 
Ingersoll’s Theory of Childhood—Some of His Little Stories — . 

The Whole Subject Carefully Examined—Significant Incident 
_ in the Life of Abraham Lincoln : 28 
Ingersoll Says Christianity Fetters Thought—The Bible and a 

Host of Distinguished Men Say Otherwise ; : sin) BS 
A Cloud of Witnesses F , : 34 
Jesus Christ : 37 


_ Amazing Ignorance of Infidels Concerning the Scriptures 
Ric Hume’s Ignorance of the New Testament—Tom Paine With- 
Bis out a Bible : ; : ; : : 38 
: 3 


4 CONTENTS. 


Distributed Ignorance and Concentrated Hatred—Probable Cause 
of Ingersoll’s Infidelity 
The Truth of the Whole Matter 


CHAPLAIN McCasn’s REPLY } A ; ; 
The Famous Chaplain Has a Remarkable Dream—He Sees the 
Great City of Ingersollville—Which Ingersoll and the Infidel 
Host Enter—And are Shut in for Six Months—Remarkable 
Condition of Things Outside and Inside—Happiness and 
Misery—Ingersoll Finally Petitions for a Church and sends 

for a Lot of Preachers 


Dr. SwAZEY’s REPLY 


Momentary View of Col. Ingersoll Thr mabe the Doaten S Gla 
The Bible on the Meridian—What the Doctor Sees in the 
Great Book : ; d : ; 

Occultation of Tugersolhe Good Sense—General Survey of 
Deities—Scope of Divine Revelation : 

The Great Central Figure—Absolute Unity of the Bible System 

The Bible Law of Development vs. Infidel Philosophy ‘ 

Common Sense View of the Subject—How it Eliminates Polyg- 
amy, Slavery, Etc. 

More Common Sense—The Grew Ingersol Orb b Approaching 
the Nihilistic Belt—Nebule a 


. COLLYER’S REPLY 


Ne Collyer Relates a Little Stor go Book that Cost Mr. Tipe 
soll the Governorship of Illinois—The Volume Philosophically 
Considered—Heavy Blows 

Sparks Flying in all ereetousieeye nies Mental Phere nese 
Occasioned by $25,000 a Year : 

The Clear Ring of Truth vs. the Dull Thud of the acer Metal— 
Potency of Simple Statement—The Doctor’s Objections to 
Ingersoll’s 'l'alk 

Putting the Fine Edge on Orthsdoxy laine a Weld with Brot 
Swing and Dr. Thomas—Borax and Bigotry 

A Touching Illustration—Eloquence and Truth— Havelock's 
Saints 3 

Atheism—Not an Tanti tution but a “ Desimidon| "The True 
Life 


FrED. Perry Powrrs’ REPLY 


The Sinaitic Code—Solvent Powers of the “Historie Meno 
Graphic Illustration of the Two Schools 


40 
43 


- 63 


64 


67 


CONTENTS. 


Divine Adjustment of the Moral Law—Progressive Elimination 
of Polygamy, Slavery, Etc—Mount Sinai and Mount Calvary 

Purpose and Potency of the Mosaic Law 

Excessive Wickedness and Proportionate Puniehinente The 
Court of Heaven vs. the Court of Earth 

Able Bodied Mendacity and Civilization—Love and Ghedience 

Mr. Powers’ Pungent Peroration 


BisHop CHENEY’s REPLY 


How the Question of anes hae to the Five Books of 
Moses 

The “Common Groufd’ party § the Gontending Parties Cogical 
Position of Ezra 

The Bishop Planting Signals on the Motavain ane of History— 
Survey of the New Moses Air Line . ; ‘ 

Termination of the Great Air Line 

Genealogical Reflections, 

Cutting the Gordian Knot 

The Bishop’s Challenge — Moses andl Treersolt as POnvanntogine: 

Mud Calendars vs. Facts—-Some Sad and Sorrowful Scientific 
Figuring in the Sand 

A Mistake of Ingersoll, Tom Paine & Go: Uonrsated=-Conclusion 


INGERSOLL’S LECTURE ON SKULLS and his Replies to Prof. Swing, 
Dr. Ryder, Dr. Herford, Dr. Collyer, and Other Critics, 


INGERSOLL AT His BROTHER’S GRAVE ° ° ° 
Colonel Ingersoll’s Funeral Oration . : . ° 


Henry WARD BEECHER’s Comments on Mr. Ingersoll’s Faith, 
and Funeral Discourse 


‘Hon. Isaac N. Arnoxp’s Comments on Ingersoll’s Funeral 


Oration e e e e ® e e > 


101 
103 


107 


146 
147 


148 


150 


= 4 SS SS 


S 
SN 


\ 


Y 


MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL 


AS SHOWN BY 


W. F. CRAFTS, 
CHAPLAIN McCABE, 
ARTHUR SWAZEY, D. D. 


ROBERT COLLYER, D. D. 
F. P. POWERS, 
BISHOP CHENEY, 

AND OTHERS. 


ALSO INCLUDING 


IncrRsoLi’s LectuRE IN FULL on “SKULLS,” AND HIS RE- 
pLigs TO Pror. Swine, W. H. Ryprer, Brooxr 
HERFORD, AND OTHER ORITIOS. 


W. F. CRAFTS’ REPLY. 


Ingersollism Outlined—*Ten Points” instead of “Five ”—Infidel 
Protoplasm. 

“J war with principles, not with men ”—the motto of 
Webster in political debates—should be the law in all con- 
flicts of ideas, especially in the realm of religion.. It is 
not of the person, Mr. Ingersoll, that I speak, but rather 
of the principles of which he is the most popular spokes- 
man, and which make up that shallowest, but loudest, 
Jericho book of infidelity’s bitter waters which begins in 
a few tears of pretended martyrdom to love of truth; spat- 
ters the mud of epithets upon Christians, while condemn- 
ing that very vice in a part of the Church in less advanced 

i! 


8 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


ages; babbles shallowly along its little channel about law 
as an almighty executive, as if the rails that give direction 
to a train took the place of the engine that draws it; winds 
very crookedly through the Old Testament, avoiding every 
passage except those few that can be used for ridicule; 
plows still more crookedly through church history, shun- 
ning every part except the unchristian swamps of bigotry 
and superstition; keeps up the same snaky crookedness in 
its passage through religion of to-day, hurrying noisily 
among only the few rocky and marshy places, where it can 
find the reptiles of superstition and error; passes with great 
dash of spray along the audacious theory that Christian 
civilization is the result of anti-Christian forces; plunges 
with loud roar of waters down its claim that infidelity is 
the only liberator of man, woman, and child; and still flow- 
ing within its narrow little channel babbles of itself as an 
emancipated ocean of untrammeled thought. 

These characteristics of the brook are the ten points of 
Ingersollism. I have read and re-read, carefully, the nine 
published lectures of Mr. Ingersoll on religious themes, 
besides hearing the one entitled ‘ Skulls,”’ and every one of 
them has something on each of these ten points of his fixed 


and unchanging creed, and not one or all has anything — 


beyond these ten “ doctrines ’’—for he often uses the words, 
“That is my doctrine.” While attacking creeds of the 
Church he holds and urges all to believe his own unformu- 
lated but distinct creed, offering in place of the “five points 


of Calvinism” the ten points of Ingersollism, the latter — 


occurring as regularly in every one of his lectures in. this 
age as the former did a century ago in the sermons of Cal- 
vinists, which he ridicules for their sameness. 

What is this frightful monster that we call “a creed?” 
Simply a statement of what one believes. Every man, 
unless he is an idiot, has a creed in which he agrees 


W. Ff. CRAFTS’ REPLY. 9 


with somebody. The only question is to find by “reason, 
observation, and experience,” which is the best. It 
would hardly be considered bigotry for a scientist to 
believe a few things as a creed of fixed scientific truths 
which no progress can ever erase, for instance, the rotund- 
ity and revolution of the earth, the attraction of the 
planets upon each other, and scores of other things which 
every scientist has held for many years unchanged, and is. 
sure are unchangeable because proved conclusively. There 
are some certainties in the science of religion, such as are 
referred to in the Apostles’ Creed, which may, without any 
greater bigotry, be considered as proved and established: 
The Christian Church of to-day does not generally insist 
upon anything further than these few concrete facts of the 
Apostles’ Creed “as essentials ” in Christian belief. When 
Evangelical churches shout their watchword, “ In essentials, 
unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity,” it is 
as if a company of scientists should say, “ On#proved facts 
we will all agree, but in the realms of hypothesis and 
opinion, we will agree to disagree.” 

But the special point we wish to notice is, that Mr. 
Ingersoll attacks creed with creed. He is as bigoted a par- 
tisan of his own creed as ever called hard names. The very 
heart of his creed seems to be the belief that his mission is 
to destroy the creed of everybody else. 

It is a suggestive fact that the naturally-gifted mind of 
Mr. Ingersoll, who declares that godless and soulless mate- 
rialism is the emancipator and inspirer of thought, should 
be able, in all the years which these ten lectures represent, 
to produce but ten ideas, the same ten ideas which made 
up his earliest lecture, years ago, appearing successively in 
each of the succeeding lectures, including that of to-day, 
there being no change save in the cap and bells of his 
jokes. Reading these ten ideas over and over for as many 


10 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


hours in going through these lectures, brought back a 
ludicrous scene in our college burial of mathematies when 
fifteen notes of Pleyel’s hymn were played dolefully over 
and over again for nearly an hour, as marching music. 

In reading these lectures, which are but ten combinations 
and permutations of ten ideas, one is reminded also of the 
lecturer’s own illustration of the boarding house keeper, 
who, for years, had no change of diet from hash, for every 
lecture is the same hash of ten ideas, changed only in 
the name and in the order of putting in the ten elements. 


ARTICLE If. 


First Point in the Ten—Sepulchral Hoots of the Ingersoll Owl— 
A Theological Rip Van Winkle. 

As in the beet hash of New England the blood red beet 
predominates and gives color to the whole, so the principal 
element in these lectures against Christianity is the blood 
of past persecutions by a corrupt part of the Church, for 
which true Christianity has no more responsibility than a 
loyal colonel in our war of 1776, or 1861, for the robberies 
and crimes of camp-followers or traitors. In every published 
lecture on religion, Mr. Ingersoll deliberately cites the acts 
of the Benedict Arnolds of the Christian army as repre- 
senting the Washingtons and Grants. He describes past. 
counterfeits of religion as specimens of its accepted cur- 
rency. It is asif one should attack present astronomers by 
relating ridiculous stories of the old astrologers, or assail 
present physicians by quoting the strange practices of the 
ancient alchemists. 

In one lecture—a fair representative of all in this respect. 
—I found that in forty-three pages only two did not con- 
tain these stale references to past persecutions, except a few 
pages given to the trial of Professor Swing, which were 
equally stale as assailing chiefly abandoned features of 


W. Ff. CRAFTS’ REPLY. 11 


human Calvinism. Past errors and follies of the human 
Calvinism, human Catholicism, and heathen religions are 
constantly spoken of as if vital elements of Christianity. 

Mr. Ingersoll ought to have a hymn to sing at the open- 
ing and close of his lectures, made on the pattern of that 
one whose first verse is: 

Go on, go on, go on, go on, 
Go on, go on, go on, 
Go on, go on, go on, go on, 
Go on, go on, go on, 
with forty-two verses more of the same, substituting “ past 
persecutions,” instead of “ go on,” whichis too progressive 
for a “ go-back”’ lecture. 

Mr. Ingersoll is a Rip Van Winkle in theology, who 
‘seems to have slept ever since the days of persecution. 
He is a Sancho Panza who assails imaginary foes of his own 
making, and thinks he has captured the golden helmet of 
Christianity when he has only secured the abandoned brass 
kettle of old traditions and discarded superstitions. He is 
a Falstaff killing the dead Percy of past follies. His lectures 
bustle with the antiquated and misused words “ priests,” 
“ dark ages,” “witches,” “ fagots,” “religious wars,” “church 
fathers,” “damned infants,” ‘“‘ martyrs,” “gods,” ete., as 
if he were speaking in a heathen land, and also in some 
dead century. And he uses the past tense so exclusively 
in his “progressive” lectures that one would suppose 
English as well as Hebrew had no present tense. It 
must have been Mr. Ingersoll, in his boyhood, that came 
from his first hunt crying, “I’ve shot a cherub,” 
having mistaken an owl for a cherub, because of the 
wretched pictures of the latter on the old grave stones. 
Mr. Ingersoll logically destroys some Church owl of the 
dark ages, and because it corresponds with his own carica- 
ture of the Church thinks he has dethroned Christianity 


12 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


itself. Like Poe’s “ raven ” who had but one word, “ Never- 
more,” Mr. Ingersoll is continually crying in the ears of 
the present that worn-out strain about abuses which we all 
condemn, ‘ Galileo-Servetus, Galileo-Servetus.” 

This ten-idea champion of popular materialism, while 
talking of progress and condemning those who hold fast to 
things of the past, is nevertheless so largely devoted to 
showing his carefully preserved martyr-mummies from the 
long-past ages of persecution, that we find Mark Twain’s 
question constantly arising at each new charge against 
Christianity: “Is he—is he dead?” and we are also 
tempted to cry out for a “fresh corpse” in place of 
these very dry and dead mummies of past abuses. To 
paraphrase the lecturer’s own words, we want one pres- 
ent fact. We pass our hats through the lectures in vain 
for some present facts against pure Christianity, which he 
assumes to assail and overthrow. There is far more excuse 
for Thomas Paine, in an age when the old Calvinistic errors 
were largely held, and for Voltaire, surrounded by the 
superstitions of Romanism, misunderstanding Christianity, 
than for this modern lecturer, who very well knows that 
the caricatures which he represents as Christianity are 
very old pictures of its ancient camp-followers. 


ARTICLE II, 
Ingersoll Mistakes a Part for the Whole—Gross Misrepresen- 


tations. 
Article Second of Ingersollism, like unto the first, but 
with present instead of past tense, is about as follows: 
Christianity to-day is proved to be false by the present 


errors and abuses that are found in some of the churches. ° 


Romish superstitions and the errors of those who have 
grossly misinterpreted the Bible as a support of slavery, 
polygamy, etc., are continually used by this champion of 


<i fe 


W. F. CRAFTS’ REPLY. 13 


“liberty of thought,” and “charity”? and “brotherhood,” 
as representing true Christianity to-day, which is quite as 
honorable as if a man should attack the principles of med- 
icine by citing the tricks of quacks. An examination of 
the hull of the Great Eastern found adhering to the iron- 
plates of the bottom an enormous multitude of mussels, 
- whose weight is estimated at three hundred tons. The 
great ship has been carrying on her hull a burden equad to 
full cargoes for six or eight sailing ships. 

Suppose I should show you a few of those barnacles as 
specimens of what the Great Eastern is made of, and then 
denounce its builders as fools? Mr. Ingersoll is constantly 
confounding barnacles of some “church” with Christian- 
ity. Suppose I should take the belts and whips of torture 
that are used by Romanists in Mexico and show them in 
lectures as specimens of the barbarism of Congregational- 
ists and Methodists? It is certainly most palpable unfair- 
ness for Mr. Ingersoll to use the word ‘“ gods’’ indiscrimi- 
nately of heathen and Christian objects of worship, and to 
employ the words, “ The Church,” as if there were no false 
or true, past or present in connection with it, and as if its 
meaning were as much a unit as “The Moon.” So also he 
unfairly classes all ministers as “priests.” It would be 
quite as fair to speak of all “medicine men,’ past and 
present, savage and civilized, under the words, “The 
Doctors.” 


ARTICLE Iff. 
The Great Ingersoll Boomerang—How it Works—F'urther Mis- 
representations Carefully Examined. 

Far less prominent, but ever present, is the third element 
in Ingersollism—an oft-recurring moan—* Infidels to-day 
are martyrs at whom men cast epithets, but not ballots.” 

The defeated infidel politician appears as regulariy and 


14 MISTAKES OF INGHRSOLL. 


revengefully in every lecture (indirectly, of course) as the 
misanthropic Byron shows himself in each of his poems as 
the real hero under the various names of ‘ Childe Harold ” 
“Don Juan,” “Corsair,” ete. Ie who cries out against 
the past for calling infidels by hard names hurls in the 
more kindly present more anathemas than any other Pope. 

“You are an infidel.” 

“Yowre a, bigot! Arn’t you ashamed to be calling 
names, you old hypocrite?’ 

In this debate of Mr. Ingersoll’s bigotry with the big- 
otry of the past, a printer might fitly misprint the “pros 
and cons,” “pigs and cows.” Itis like the English lady 
who criticised an American friend for saying, at a mistake 
in croquet, “What a horrid scratch,” and when asked 
what would have been better, replied, “ You might have 
said, ‘What a beastly fluke.” It is not strange that the 
people will not elect to represent them in politics, one who. 
so audaciously misrepresents them, as does Mr. Ingersoll 
in nearly every attempt to declare the belief of Christians. 


Misrepresenting Bible Passages. 


Dr. Ryder, Prof. Swing, and Dr. Herford, have abund- 
antly shown his numerous and inexcusable misrepresenta- 
tions of Bible passages, to which may be added another 
more atrocious, if possible, the implication that the perse- 
cutions of Saul of Tarsus, and the adulteries of Solomon, 
are a part of the Christian system, and also that Jephthah 
really killed his daughter as a sacrifice, which the Bible 
does not declare, nor any Christian believe, and the mis- 
interpretation of the passage about women keeping silence 
in the churches, which the Christian Church of to-day con- 
siders of only temporary force, a command to Corinth, and 
not to Christendom, no more binding upon us than Paul’s. 
request that Timothy should bring his cloak that was left 


; wha * oy . deep e 
4 a ye ~ 


Rie Se. iis fs ‘ zs 
ne A ay a} ee 


W. Ff. CRAFTS’ REPLY. 15 


at Troas. It is a kindred misrepresentation to say the 
assertion that those who tortured the martyrs were the 
same ones who made the bible—an assertion which _his- 
tory clearly refutes, as the Old Testament was ar- 
ranged in its present form 3888 B. C., and the New 
Testament was collected as it is at present before the days 
of persecution by the church began. 

It is also a inisrepresentation, not only of the Bible, put 
of the common principles of interpretation in every 
department of literature, to intimate that an explanation 
of passages as poetic and figurative, is unfair and begging 
the question. Suppose we should put a literal interpreta- 
tion upon the tropical figures of Mr. Ingersoll’s eloquence, 
and when he speaks of the sun’s rays “as arrows from the 
quiver of the sun,” declare him an ignorant idolator, who 
thinks the sun an intelligent being who has caught the 
passion for archery. 


Sun and Moon Standing Still. 


It is equally absurd for him to interpret the poem about 
the sun and moon standing still by the rules of prose. Mr. 
Ingersoll also says, poetically: ‘Think of that wonderful 
chemistry by which bread was changed into the divine 
tragedy of Hamlet.” Suppose we should interpret that 
sentence as fact rather than figure, and say that Mr. Inger- 
soll believes that by the combination of certain liquids and 
solids in the chemist’s retort this marvelous literary pro- 
duction was created! It would be quite as reasonable as 
to insist upon absolute literalness in the bold figures of 
Oriental eloquence and poetry. 

Mr. Ingersoll also misrepresents the Christian’s Sunday 
in the home, speaking of it as “a day too good for a child 
to be happy in,” saying: ‘ The idea, that any God would 
hate to hear a child laugh.”’ We all know (?) that in the 


16 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


Christian homes of to-day the smiles and laughter of 
childhood are strictly forbidden, and any one who smiles in 
church is carried out by the police (). 


Hell. 


Especially does Mr. Ingersoll continually and grossly 
misrepresent Christianity in regard to the conditions by 
which men are believed to bring themselves to Hell. Hear 
him: “It is infinitely absurd to suppose that a God would 
address a communication to intelligent beings, and yet 
make it a crime, to be punished in eternal flames, for them 
to use their intelligence for the purpose of understanding 
His communication. Neither can they show why any one 
should be punished, either in this world or another, for 
acting honestly in accordance with reason; and yet a doc- 
trine with every possible argument against it has been, 
and still is, believed und defended by the entire orthodox 
world. If I should say ninety-nine in a hundred go down 
to Hell, I should have the support of the entire orthodox 
world. You can see for yourselves the justice of damn- 
ing a man if his parents happened to baptize him in the 
wrong way. Think of a God who will damn his children 
for the expression of an honest thought!” 

Few, if any, intelligent Christians teach that a man must 
accept their Decor anne creed in all its details in order 
to be saved, as the careless critics of Christianity so often 
assert, but rather all evangelical Christians repeat the New 
Testament conditions of salvation, “ Believe on the Lord 
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved,’ and declare nega- 
tively, not as has been said by Mr. Ingersoll, said by 
infidels, that all who do not believe will not be saved, but 
rather in the words of Martin Luther, ‘“ No man shall die 
in his sins, except him who, through disbelief, thrusts from 
him the forgiveness of sin, which in the name of Jesus is 


W. Ff. CRAFTS’ REPLY. 17 


offered him.” It is the firm of Ignorance and Bigotry that 
declare that evangelical Christianity teaches that a man can 
not be saved who does not believe in its statement of the 
Trinity and its interpretations of the Bible. 

He also utterly misrepresents the Christian conception 
of saving faith as ignoring reason and action, both of which 
it includes, and as resting chiefly on a book or a creed as 
its end, rather than on the person, Christ. Every church 
teaches that intelligent faith and faithfulness toward Christ 
(not creeds in detail) is the condition of salvation. ‘“ Faith,” 
says Bishop Wightman, “believes on competent. testi- 
mony what it could not otherwise know.” Or, as Dr. 
Arnold says: “ Faith is reason leaning on God.” Reason 
is the foundation of belief. 


The Present vs. the Future. 


Another of the almost countless misrepresentat¥ons of 
religion by Mr. Ingersoll, is the frequent statement that 
Christianity is wholly devoted to the future, and ignores man’s 
present needs, which reminds us that it was Thomas Paine 
(?) and not the Bible that said, ‘Pure religion and unde- 
filed before God the Father, is this, to visit the fatherless 
and the widows in their affliction, and to keep himself 
unspotted from the world.” And you have all observed 
that the organized societies and benevolences, by which 
orphans, and the aged, and the helpless, are aided in asy- 
lums and refuges, were not (%) established by this Chris- 
tianity which “ignores man’s present needs, and devotes 
itself exclusively to the future.” _ Christian ministers never 
preach on combining works with faith, or showing charac- 
ter by conduct, or loving their neighbors as themselves. 
Mr. Ingersoll declares that a little restitution is better than 
a great deal of repentance, and we have noticed that when 
Ingersoll has delivered a lecture or two in our large cities, 

2 


18 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


those among his hearers who have defrauded others have, 
at once, ‘begun the work of restitution (?) by sending back 
the money they had stolen from employers, creditors and 
customers. (7?) Mr. Moody, who preaches repentance as _ 
well as restitution, of course (?) has no such results follow- 
ing his work, as he proclaims the Christianity whose entire 
interest is in the future life. (?) You smile at this practical 
test of Mr. Ingersoll’s theory, in view of the fact that we 
have no record of a single instance where one of his lectures 
has led to the restitution of stolen property; while such 
cases are constantly occurring in connection with the work 
of Mr. Moody and other Christians. Several very notable 
ones have come under my own immediate notice. 

It is an equally astounding, barefaced misrepresentation, 
or to put it in fewer letters, false, when he states that all of 
the orthodox religion of the day is Calvinistic. Part of 
the so-called Calvinistic churches are not Calvinistic in the 
usual sense of the word, and we had fondly dreamed that 
there was such a body of Christians as Methodists who are 
distinctly anti-Calvinistic, and hold the first place in num- 
bers among Protestant Churches in America. 

It is also a misrepresentation to say, ‘ Whoever thinks 
he has found it all out, he is orthodox,” for every orthodox 
pulpit constantly preaches the duty of growth, intellectual 
and spiritual. Mr. Ingersoll declares that Protestants to- 
day would persecute, as in the past, if they had the power, 
a statement in which he assumes the role of the prophet, 
and shows the profundity of his insight into the spirit of 
Christianity to-day, which binds up the broken-hearted 
and ministers to the troubled and sorrowing. It is cunning 
sophistry to say that every one is opposed to the union of 
Church and state, because they know that the Church 
could not be trusted with power, a statement which obtains 
its furce by suppressing the very important fact that the 


W. Ff. CRAFTS’ REPLY. 19 


Church when united with political power draws into itself 
unprincipled politicians, and becomes entirely a different 
body through the opportunities it offers to selfishness and 
ambition. It is also a misrepresentation to say that “ Prot- 
estants stand up for Protestant persecutors of the past,” 
for all Protestant churches of to-day condemn the burning 
of Servetus and such acts as much as any one. It is also 
a misrepresentation by holding back half the truth to tell 
us of that base or mistaken element of the Church that 
made the rack and not of that other noble element of the 
Church that was upon the rack, for the martyrs were sel- 
dom if ever infidels. , 


Ingersoll’s Horrible Estimate of Truth. 


Mr. Ingersoll, in his recent lecture on “ Skulls,’ twice 
said that truth was not worth a little suffering, that one 
had better lie or recant than suffer a little pain, or lose a 
drop of blood. He would “turn Judas Iscariot to his own 
soul” to save athumb. This significant item as to his 
whole estimate of truth helps us to account for the whole- 
sale manufacture of falsehoods in his lectures. 

Mr. Ingersoll’s most gross misrepresentation is the 
habitual custom of telling only one side of a fact, quoting 
difficult Bible passages but never sublime ones, bad cus- 
toms of the Church but never good ones, defects in Chris- 
tians but never excellences. When Mr. Ingersoll speaks 
of “a lawyer whipping his ehild for holding back part of 
the truth,’ he describes his own partisan and one-sided 
method, as Professor Swing has shown, attacking Christian- 
ity as the hired attorney of infidelity, or the hired cam- 
paigner of the anti-Christian party who is to present only 
one side. This, too, from aman who claims that infidelity 
unfetters thought and broadens mind. 


20 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


The Bible the Best of Books, and Christ the Best of Men. 


Mr. Ingersoll also misrepresents the differences among 
the various forms of Christianity. All men of broad 
scholarship of the last and best century who have written 
on religion, both skeptics and Christians, agree on two 
things—the Bible as the best of books, and Christ as the 
best of men. So much at least may be said to be indorsed 
by all scholarship, and when a man rests down upon these 
two truths as proved and established, and follows them out 
into the truths to which they lead, he will not be likely to 
go far astray, for if Christ is confessedly the greatest and 
best of men, the “Teacher sent from God,” then His 
teachings are to be accepted, and those teachings are the 
foundations,of all essential Christianity; and if the Bible 
is the best of books, the moral and spiritual guide of man, 
then its teachings are to be carefully read and deeply 
regarded, and all who take this book as life’s guide book 
will be led into all truths of Christianity that are funda- 
mental and important. 

All Christians, Romanists and Protestants, agree that 
Christ is the living embodiment and pattern of Christian 
manhood, and that the Bible, at least, contains the ‘ Word 
of God.” All evangelical Christians agree on that broad 
and simple platform of the Apostles Creed, and declare 
not “many,” but one way to Heaven, and that not by 
“believing an incomprehensible creed,” but by faith and 
faithfulness of intellect, will, heart and life, toward the 
person, Jesus Christ. Two quotations fairly represent all 
the evangelical churches on this matter. Bishop Whipple, 
an Episcopalian, recently remarked, ‘“‘ As the grave grows 
nearer, my theology is growing strangely simple, and it 
begins and ends with Christ, as the only refuge for the 
lost.” Dr. Alexander, of Princeton, a Presbyterian, when 


W. ff. CRAPTS’ REPLY. 21 


dying said; ‘‘ All my theology is reduced to this narrow 
compass, ‘Jesus Christ came into the world to save sin- 
ners.’”” Mr. Ingersoll, misrepresents the most familiar 
facts when he says, “ Just in proportion as the human race 
has advanced, the church has lost power. There is no 
exception to this rule.” It is a fact so familiar that every 
intelligent child knows it, that Christianity was never so 
powerful in the world, as to-day—never had so many fol- 
lowers. By the multiplied agencies of church work, six 
thousand are converted per day—two Pentecosts every 
twenty-four hours. 

Mr. Ingersoll misrepresents not only the Bible and 
church history, by leaving out all that would not help his 
theories, and stating one half the truth, but he also mis- 
represents the Declaration of Independence as “retiring 
God from politics,” as if the words were not there, “the 
station to which the laws of nature, and nature’s God entitle 
them,” “All men are endowed by their Creator with cer- 


‘tain inalienable rights”—“and for the support of this 


declaration, and in a firm reliance upon Divine Providence, 
we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, 
and our sacred honor.’ It is surely infinitely absurd to 
expect a man broadly and truly to represent us in politics, 
who so inexcusably and grossly misrepresents us in religion. 


ARTICLE IV. 


Something New if True—Infidelity the Essential Factor in Pro- 


gressive Civilization—But Coleridge, Wm. H. Seward, 
Bismarck, and other great Statesmen can not see it— 
Civilization goes only with Christianity. 

The fourth article in Ingersollism is as follows: ‘The 
civilization of this country is not the child of faith, but of 
unbelief—the result of free thought. But for the efforts 
of a few brave infidels, the church would have taken the 


22 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


world back to the midnight of barbarism.” How ignorant 
we have all been! Luther, who led Europe out of the 
Dark Ages, was not, it seems, a child of faith, but of free 
thought (?) and Paul also, who brought civilization into 
barbarous Europe, peopled with savage tribes, as 
described by Julius Cesar in his Commentaries. The 
transformation of savage Gaul and Britain into civilized 
France and England was accomplished by the efforts of » 
“ unbelief.” (7) 

Long ago, Christianity had a contest with Atheism, Pan- 
theism, and Culture, as to which was the best civilizer. 
Christianity selected Europe, and gave the other three con- 
testants Asia, with several centuries the start. Atheism, 
or Buddhism, which ignores all spiritual things and devotes 
itself to the present life, has operated for thousands of 
years in India. Pantheism, or Brahminism, made its 
experiment in the same country; and Culture obtained 
exclusive control of China, ruling both church and state. 
As a result, in accordance with Mr. Ingersoll’s theory, these’ 
elements of Ingersollism have developed a lofty civiliza- 
tion (?) in China and India, given education to woman, 
torn away the veil of her slavish seclusion, made her the 
equal of man, treated female infants as honorably as the 
boys, developed a high morality in the community, 
and supplied the world with its standard literature, its 
foremost science, and its chief inventions.(?) On the other 
hand, Christianity came into barbarous Europe a dozen 
centuries later, caused the degradation and enslavement of 
women and children, (?) repressed scientific investigation, (?) 
prevented invention, (?) checked thought, (?) and thus hin- 
dered literary activity, and, by the barbarism of the Bible, 
“brought bondage to man, woman, and child ” in body and 
brain.(?) If the facts do not correspond to these legitimate 
deductions from Mr. Ingersoll’s theories as to the effect of 


W. Ff. CRAFTS’ REPLY, 23 


atheistic culture, on the one hand, and Christianity, on the 
other, upon national life, so much the worse for the facts. 

Mr. Ingersoll says much against the wars of Christian 
nations. He forgets that peace societies and arbitration 
were never known outside of Christianity, and that wars in 
Christian lands are the gradually disappearing remains of 
previous barbarism. He talks of science and invention as 
opening up this era! How does it happen that all this is 
in Christian rather than in heathen lands? He talks of 
charity and benevolence of infidels! Why is it that all 
benevolent societies are Christian, and that Thomas Paine 
halls can not be supported? He talks of liberty of speech 
and thought and government! Why is it that such liberty 
is only found in Christian countries? He has much to say 
of the barbarous age of dug-outs, tom-toms, and wooden 
plows! Has he not seen in the World’s Expositions these 
very things as representing nations to-day, that have not 
risen from their primitive degradation and ignorance 
because Christianity has not yet reached them? 

As to the relation of the Bible to civilization, Samuel 
Taylor Coleridge declares that “for more than a thousand 
years the Bible, collectively taken, has gone hand in hand 
with civilization, science, law, in short, with moral and 
intellectual cultivation, always supporting, and often lead- 
ing the way.” 

William H. Seward says, “The whole hope of human 
progress is suspended on the ever-growing influence of the 
Bible.” 

Bismarck utters a similar sentiment, as quoted in his 
recent biography: “ How, without faith in a revealed 
religion, in a God who wills what is good, in a Supreme 
Judge, and a future life, men can live together harmoniously 
—each doing his duty and letting every one else to do his— 
I do not understand.’ Similar sentiments are uttered by 


® 


24 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


the leading statesmen of all lands, the unanimous verdict 
of statesmanship being that civilization can not be carried 
forward without Christianity. 


ARTICLE V. 


Marvelous Power of Time and Circumstance—Tragic Effect of 
Iso-thermal Lines—Peoria Mud Necessarily the Seventh 
Heaven as Ingersoll Sees it. 


The fifth article of Ingersollism is, that gods and men 
are but evolutions of matter and circumstance, the differ- 
ence between heathen gods and the Christian’s God being 
the result of a difference in their worshippers, and the dif- 
ference in men being the result of varying soils and sur- 
roundings. Hesays: “ Nogod was everin advance of the 
nation that created him.” In answer to this last statement, 
which is true, of course, of all imaginary deities, but not of 
the One True God, it is only necessary to ask any candid 
and intelligent man to read the description of God given 
in the Bible, where both Testaments declare Him to be 
“merciful and gracious, long suffering and abundant in 
goodness and truth, but will by no means spare the guilty,” 
and then say whether this God is nothing more than the reflec- 
tion of the stiff-necked and perverse people who held to this 
conception of Deity. The fact is, God as described in the 


Bible is infinitelv loftier and purer than the Jewish people, 


or any people of any age. It is still more absurd, if pos- 
sible, for Mr. Ingersoll to assert that “men are but the 
creatures of their surroundings, made what they are wholly 
by material causes, such as soil and climate.” It is one of 
the characteristic contradictions of history, such as are found 
so frequently in Mr. Ingersoll’s lectures, when he asserts 
that great minds have never been found except in the “ lands 
of respectable winters,” with the intimation that no great 
achievements in art or literature are possible in warm 


om 


W. F. CRAFTS’ REPLY. — 25 


Oriental lands. As if Babylon, and Nineveh, and Egypt 
had not been in early ages the universities of the world. 
Oarlyle must have been very much deceived when he declared 
Job of the Oriental land of Uz to be the greatest poet the 
world has known. Mohammed of those warm lands was 
certainly great, even though wrong, and scores of others, 
equally eminent, 1:icht be mentioned, although, of course, 
it is evident that greatness of men or peoples in tropical 
lands is rather in spite of circumstances than by their help. 

Mr. Ingersoll in his lecture on “Man, Woman, and 
Child,” speaking of one of these warm countries as the rep- 
resentative of all, says: “You might go there with five 
thousand Congregational preachers, five thousand deacons, 
five thousand professors in colleges, five thousand of the 
solid men of Boston and their wives, settle them all, and 
you will see the second generation riding upon a mule bare- 
back, no shoes, a grapevine whip, with*a rooster under each 
arm going to a cock fight on Sunday. Such is the influence 
of climate.” But like most of Mr. Ingersoll’s theories, this 


“one is unfortunately the direct opposite of facts. The 


Sandwich Islands have all these disadvantages of climate, 
and fifty years ago were plunged in the deepest barbarism, 
with all the vices of savage life; but to-day, as all well- 
informed persons know, they are as truly civilized as any 
land, with industries, education, protection of life and 
property, equal to what is found in our own favored coun- 
try. And this is all due, as King Kalikua said in New 
York, to the Christianizing of his people. Indeed, Mr. 
Ingersoll contradicts his own theory as to the dependence 
of the individual upon surroundings in his lectures on 
Humboldt and Paine, both of whom he represents as 
becoming great in spite of surroundings that would natu- 
rally have led in the opposite diresuehe thus involuntarily 
recognizing something in man deeper than mere physical 
evolution. 


26 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


The whole absurd theory of individuals and nations being 


wholly dependent upon soil, and climate, and surroundings , 


for their character, is fairly represented in the following 
incident: 


“Pa,” said a little six-year old, “ what makes me grow ?” — 


“Why, the bread and potato I feed you with.” 

“ Does potatoes make our pig grow, too?” 

66 Yes.” 

“ Then, what makes him be a pig and me be a boy?” 

That boy’s simple question explodes all the theories of 
evolution. 


ARTICLE Vi. 
Law is Ingersoll’s God. 


The sixth article of Ingersollism is, “I believe in law, the 
Almighty maker of Heaven and earth.” One might as 
well say that the United States Constitution made our 
country, or try to rule the land by laws without enforcers. 

That the universe is governed according to a system of 
law is recognized by Christians as much as by any one, and 
the laws of the Bible are not new arbitrary enactments, but 
recognitions and proclamations of that part of the law-sys- 
tem of the universe that relates to religion and morality. 
Laws of spirit are as eternal as laws of matter. Natural 
science proclaims the latter, religious science the former. 


ARTICLE VI. 
Liberty and Infidelity—What De Tocqueville Says About it. 


The seventh article is made up of the following statements: 


“ All religions are inconsistent with mental freedom. The 


doubter, the investigator, the infidel, have been the saviours 
of liberty.” 


Mr. Ingersoll, when talking of liberty contradicts what 


he himself has said of law, and fails to remind his hearers 


17 


= 
> ow be 


W. F CRAFTS’ REPLY. j Q7 


and readers that the circle of law bounds on every side the 
privileges or liberty, that one has liberty only within the 
range of propriety, and that all beyond that is license. He 
also forgets the very evident fact that the prevailing ideas of 
personal liberty in the world are due to the general dissem- 
ination, by Christianity, of the truth thata man is a soul as 
well as a body. Wherever men are regarded as mere phys- 
ical beings, with no life deeper than the bodily life, the 
stronger will enslave the weaker—woman, child and captive. 
When the idea that each man is an immortal soul takes 
hold upon man, with it there comes the idea of individual 
rights. If Ingersollism should ever persuade a civilized 
people that man has no soul, this form of bondage of the 
weaker to the stronger will be resumed. Notsoil, but soul, 
is the secret of liberty. | 

Even Mr. Frothingham recently declared that the Bible is 
a democratic book, arid that we get out of it our ideas of 
equality. He remembered what Mr. Ingersoll seems to for- 
get, that all through the Bible, theidea of personal and relig- 
ious liberty is found, especially in those words of the Apostles 
to the rulers who attempted to tyrannize over their con- 
sciences, ‘‘ We ought to obey God rather than man,” which 
has fitly been termed the concisest of all statements of the 
principles of personal liberty. We may show this relation of 
religion to liberty in the words of the greatest modern 
writer upon such questions, De Tocqueville, who says, 
“ Bible Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its 
conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of 
its claims.” 

ARTICLE VIII. 
Woman—Ingersoll’s Theory at Variance with F'acts. 

The eighth article of Ingersollism, is in regard to woman, 
and is as follows: “As long as woman regards the Bible 
as the charter of her rights, she will be the slave of man. 


28 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


The Bible was not written by a woman. Within its lids © 


there is nothing but humiliation and shame for her.” 

You have all doubtless observed that in heathen coun- 
tries, where the Bible has not yet come with its enslaving 
(?) influence woman has (?) liberty and honor, and educa- 
tion, and opportunities of public activity and benevolence 
¢?), but in Christian lands she is veiled, degraded, shut out 
of sight and restrained from education (?). I have always 
observed, as a pastor, that it is the religious, and church- 
going husbands that tyrannize over their wives as “ bosses,” 
and deny them their liberties of conscience, and other 
rights. (7%) 

You smile at the absurd statement, knowing that the 
‘heathen at home,” who as husbands are harsh and brutal 
to the wives they have promised to cherish, are frequently 
ardent believers in Ingersollism, and seldom in any, way 
connected with even nominal Christianity, while every 
school boy is familiar with the fact that woman, in all 
except Christian lands, is hardly better than a slave, nota- 
bly so, in that land where Ingersollism under the name of 
Buddhism has the controlling influence. Mr. Ingersoll 


utters many true sentiments about the family, but all of — 


these he learned of Christianity, not from China, or Egypt. 


ARTICLE IX. 


Ingersoll’s Theory of Childhood—Some of His Little Stories—The 


. Whole Subject Carefully Hxamined—Significant Incident 

in the Life of Abraham Lincoln. 

The ninth article of Ingersollism is a theory of child- 
nood which attacks the principles of sound government and 
health even more than religion: ‘ Do not have it in your 
mind that youmust govern them; that they (children) must 
obey. Let your children eat what they desire. They know 
what they wish to eat. Let them begin at which end of 
the dinner they please.” 


W. fF. ORAFTS RHPLY. 29 


Such a theory is worthy of nothing more than the smile 
with which you hear it. Itis all answered in the following 


representative fact of childhood: A little bit of a girl 


wanted more and more buttered toast, till she was told that 
too much would make her sick. _ Looking wistfully at the 
dish for a moment, she thought she saw a way out of her 
difficulty, and exclaimed, “ Well, give me annuzer piece, 
and send for the doctor!” 3 
Mr. Ingersoll, in connection with his theory of child- 
hood, often refers to the fact, that he leaves his pocket- 
beok around where his children can help themselves to 
whatever they wish, and urges the same course upon all 
parents. It is said that one of the lecturer’s admirers, being 
convinced that this was the correct theory, determined to 
give up punishing his child, and try the new plan. Accord- 
ingly, he said to his boy, “John, Iam convinced I have 
been taking the wrong course to try to make you a better 
boy. I am going to trust you more, and give up whip- 
pings. Jam going away for a few days, and I have left 
my pocket-book in the top drawer of the bureau. Help 
yourself to money whenever you need it.” After a few 


days the father returned to his home, late at night. As he 


opened the door he stumbled over a large canoe in the 
entry, and was then attacked by a large bull-dog that his 
boy had bought. Entering the boy’s room, he found it 


_ hung round with guns, and fishing poles, and daggers, with 


another canoe, and several small dogs—his pocket-book lying 
empty on the top of the bureau. He is now less enthusi- 
astic in regard to Ingersoll’s knowledge of domestic gov- 
ernment. 

The leading point which Mr. Ingersoll endeavors to 
make in connection with his lecture on Thomas Paine is 
that the Bible shocks a child, and, therefore, can’t be true. 
You have all observed how much children are shocked as 


30 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


they gather about the mother’s knees in the twilight, and 
hear her tell the stories of Jesus, and Joseph, and Moses, 


and Samuel, and Daniel (?). As to the relation .of the - 


Bible to childhood and home life, let me quote the opinion 
of several eminent men, mostly skeptics, for whom even 
Mr. Ingersoll cherishes the highest regard: 

Thomas Jefferson, speaking of the Bible and home life, 
says: “I have always said, and always will say, that the 
studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better 
citizens, better fathers, and better husbands.” 

John Quincy Adams says: ‘So great is my veneration 
for the Bible, that the earlier my children begin to read it, 
the more confident will be my hopes that they will prove 
useful citizens to their country and respectable members of 
society.” 


Theodore Parker says: “ There is not a boy on the hills - 
of New England, not a girl born in the filthiest cellar which 


disgraces a capital in Europe, and cries to God against 
the barbarism of modern civilization; not a boy nor a girl 
all Christendom through, but their lot is made better by 
that great book.” 


Diderot, the French philosopher and skeptic, was wont . 


to make this confession: ‘“ No better lessons than those 
of the Bible can I teach my child.” 

Huxley, in an address upon education, says: “I have 
always been strongly in favor of secular education, in the 
sense of education without theology; but I must confess I 
have been no less seriously perplexed to know by what 
practical measures the religious feeling, which is the essen- 
tial basis of conduct, was to be kept up, in the present 
utterly chaotic state of opinion on these matters, without 
the use of the Bible. The pagan moralists lack life and 
color, and even the noble stoic, Marcus Aurelius, is too high 
and refined for an ordinary child. Take the Bible as 2 


W. F. CRAFTS’ REPLY. 31 


whole, make the severest deductions which fair criticism 
ean dictate, and there still remains in this old literature a 
vast residuum of moral beauty and grandeur. By the study 
of what other book could children be so humanized? If 
Bible reading is not accompanied by constraint and solem- 
nity, I do not believe there is anything in which children 
take more pleasure.” 

What would “shock the mind of a child’ would be to hear 
Mr. Ingersoll excuse them for telling a lie, in order to 
escape a whipping. What would shock a child would be 
” hear Mr. Desa Beane Bran thy 


What ould shock ihe mind of a child en be tt 
hear Mr. Ingersoll telling to a crowded audience with a 
smile of approval the story of a boy’s oath. 


Speaking of swearing reminds me of that incident of 
Abraham Lincoln, whom Mr. Ingersoll calls “ the grandest 
man ever President of the United States,” who said to a 
person sent to him by one of the Senators, and who, 
in conversation, uttered an oath, “I thought the Sen- 
ator had sent me a gentleman; I see I was mistaken. 
There is the door, and I bid you good-day.” I hold in my 
hand the last report of the New York Society for the. Pre- 
vention of Cruelty to Children. Of course, the bruised and 
beaten little ones, here described, were the victims of 
cruelty in Christian homes (?). Their fathers and mothers 
had taken too much religion (?), had become brutalized by 
reading the Bible (?), and hence abused the children by 
their own fireside until the law was compelled to interfere 
for their defense (?). 


32 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


In my work as a member of the Citizen’s League for the 
suppression of the sale of liquors to minors, I have noticed 
that this supreme cruelty to children—selling them in their 
immature years the liquors that make them self-destroyers, 
violators of the public peace, and candidates for drunkards’ 
graves—is perpetrated by Christian men, not by the infidels 
who applaud so lustily at Mr. Ingersoll’s lectures (?). Here 
I am reminded of the published report, which seems well 
authenticated, that Mr. Ingersoll in his childhood lived in 
one of those exceptional homes where nominal Christianity 
was combined with harshness, cruelty and bigotry. If so, 
this would be some slight excuse for his present conduct, 
were it not for the fact that maturer years have given him 
abundant opportunity to see the bright and sunny side of — 
Christian gentleness in other homes. And there are no 
true homes that do not owe their existence to the influence 
of Christianity upon the family relation. 

Having myself made childhood a special study for several 
years, I find that the degree of recognition given to the 
opinions and importance of childhood in various ages and 
countries, is exactly in proportion to the degree of Chris- 
tianity there, children being scarcely noticed ‘in heathen 
lands, either in poetry, or history, or ethics, while the Bible 
religion has always given childhood an exceedingly prom- 
inent place.’ All the attention given to the education and 
development of the little ones is but the starlight that 
shines down upon us from the manger of the God-child. 


ARTICLE X. 
Ingersoll Says Christianity Fetters Thought—The Bible and a 
Host of Distinguished Men Say Otherwise. 
The tenth article of Ingersoilism is the frequent asser- 
tion that Christianity fetters thought, while infidelity 
emancipates it, in such passages as these: ‘In all ages, 


W. Ff. CRAFTS’ REPLY. 33 


reason has been regarded as the enemy of religion.” “The 
gods dreaded education and knowledge then (in the time of 
the Garden of Eden) just as they do now.” “For ages 
a deadly conflict has been waged by a few brave men of 
thought and genius, on the one side, and the great, 
ignorant, religious mass, on the other. The few have 
said: ‘Think.’ The many have said: ‘ Believe.’ ”’ 

In order to ascertain what freedom and power of thought 
materialism had given to the mind of Mr. Ingersoll, I 
made special examination of the logic in the lecture on 
“The Gods,” and found there, in a very short time, one or 
more specimens of all the fallacies laid down in the text- 
books of logic. ‘ Waiter,” said John Randolph, at a cer- 
tain hotel, “if this is coffee, bring me tea; if this is tea, 
bring me coffee.” And so we say, if this is the “ power of 
thought,” give us weakness. 

Instead of the Bible forbidding us to think, as Inger- 
sollism so often declares, it is full of ringing appeals to 
“reason,” “think,” ‘consider,’ “ponder.” “prove all 
things.” 


Prov. 26:16: ‘The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven 
men that can render areason.”’ 
Eccl. 7:25: ‘‘I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to 


seek out wisdom, and the reason of things, and to know the wickedness 
of folly, even of foolishness and madness.” 

Isa. 1:18: ‘Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord; 
though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they 
be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” 

Matt. 22:42: “ What think ye of Christ?’ 

Acts 17:2: ‘“ Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three 
Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures.” 

Acts 18:4: “He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and per- 
suaded the Jews and the Greeks.” 

Acts 18:19: ‘And he came to Ephesus, and left them there; but He 
himself entered into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews.” 

Acts 24:25: ‘‘And.as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and 
judgment to come, Felix trembled.” € 


3 


34 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


Rom. 12:1: ‘“Ibeseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of 
God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable 
unto God, which is your reasonable service.” 

Phil. 4:8: ‘Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatso- 
ever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things 
are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good 
report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these 
things.” 

1 Thess. 5:21: ‘“ Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” 

Let us look into biography, and make a practical test of 
this theory that the Bible fetters thought. If so, those 
who believe and love it will not be strong and leading 
thinkers. Let us apply the test in the ranks of science. 


A Cloud of Witnesses. 


Professor Benjamin Pierce, of Harvard College, has 
recently completed a very remarkable course of lectures at 
the Lowell Institute, Boston, on “Ideality in Science.” 
Professor Pierce, who is now in his seventieth year, is, 
perhaps, the most eminent mathematical scholar in this 
country, and the author of some of the most profound 
investigations and speculations that have been made in the 
realm of astronomical science. This man of mighty thought 
must have been emancipated and inspired by infidelity (‘%). 


This scholar, whose mind may be supposed to feed on fact, - » 


holds an unquestioning faith in a personal God and the 
immortal life. 

The late Professor Henry, of the Smithsonian Institute, 
was one of the broadest and best of scientific thinkers 
because infidelity gave him freedom of thought(?). No, 
he was a sweet-spirited Christian in his daily life. 

Sir David Brewster, another eminent scientist, said of 


his Christian experience: “I have had this light for many 


years, and oh! how bright it is to me.” 
Professor Silliman, who is unsurpassed in his scientific 


We PSCRAMTS? BHPLY: 30 


department, must also be classed under the head of “the 
ignorant religious mass,” for he was another of the very 
many Christian scientists, whom the world has ignorantly(‘?) 
supposed a thinker, in spite of Mr. Ingersoll’s theory of 
faith as being a mental bondage. He says: “I can truly 
declare that, in the study and exhibition of science to my 
pupils and fellow men, I have never forgotten to give all 
honer and glory to the infinite Creator—happy if I might 
be the honored interpreter of a portion of his works, and 
of the beautiful structure and beneficent laws discovered 
therein by the labors of many illustrious predecessors.” 
We might add scores of others in each department of sci- 
ence, who have found no discord between the Word and 
world of God. 

Who are the four greatest thinkers in the realm of states- 
manship of this century? Daniel Webster, Gladstone, 
Thiers, and Bismarck. All of them, of course, are enabled 
to be thus broad and prominent as national thinkers by the 
power of infidelity (?). No, each one of them is most posi- 
tive in his Christian belief. 

Webster declares the grandest thought which ever entered 
his mind was that of “ personal accountability to God.” 

Gladstone gives much of time and attention to religious 
_ writing. 

Thiers says, in his last days: “I often invoke that God 
in whom I am happy to believe, who is denied by fools and 
ignorant people, but in whom the enlightened man finds 
his consolation and hope.” 

Bismarck is called, in derision, “the God-fearing man,” 
in reference to his well-known religious principles. (Busch’s 
Bismarck, p. 200). 

We might add to these Charles Sumner, wie called 
Christianity the “truereligion”’ and “ our faith,” and whose 
speeches constantly recognize God and Christianity. 


36 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


Who are the leading literary characters of the century? 
Victor Hugo, what of him? Did you ever read his chapter 
on prayer in Les Miserables, and his grand tribute to 
immortality, uttered as a rebuke to a company of French 
physicians, a few years ago? Moore—have you read his 
“ Paradise and the Peri,” the Gospel of repentance, and do 
you know him as the author of the hymn, “ Come, ye Dis- — 
consolate?’? Walter Scott—have you read his translation 
of “ Dies Ire,” uttered so devoutly in his last days: 

“Oh! in that day, that dreadful day, 
When Heaven and earth shall pass away, 
Be Thou, oh Christ, the sinner’s stay, 
When Heaven and earth shall pass away.” 

And Shakspeare, whom Mr. Ingersoli accounts one of 
the grandest of human minds, was great enough to believe 
in the Bible. And so Thackeray, Whittier, Dickens, Gold- 
smith, Longfellow, and Irving were intellectual believers in 
. Christianity. 

The following men, also lacking the freedom and power 
of thought that comes by materialism (?) became mentally 
so weak (?) that they declared, in varying terms, after read- 
ing largely in all departments of literature, that the Bible 
is the best book in the world: Sir Walter Scott, Sir Wil- 
liam Jones, George Gilfillan, Milton, Pollok, Coleridge, 
Collins, Bacon, John Adams, Napoleon, James Freeman 
Clarke, Lange, Kitto, Robertson. And Channing put the 
Gospels where these others place the whole Bible—above 
all other literature. 

The following persons strongly commend the Bible as a 
whole: Dr. Samuel Johnson, Carlyle, Dryden, Young, 
Cowper, Locke, Newton, Seward, Dawson, Franklin, John 
Quincy Adams, Bellows, Bartol, Theodore Parker, Rous- 
seau, Guizot, Bunsen, Story, Webster, Diderot, Matthew 
Arnold, and Huxley. 


W. F. CRAPTS’ RHPLY. 37 


The following persons among many others declare that 
they found in the Bible, not fetters for thought, but their 
strongest inspiration to thought: Daniel Webster, Fisher 
Ames, Mitchell, the Astronomer, Ruskin and Goethe. 

It is evident that very many others might truly have 
said the same, including Theodore Parker and Mr. Froth- 
ingham and other skeptics, whose writings show plainly 
that they owe their beauties of style to a familiarity with 
the Bible. 

Jesus Christ. 

With these great men who have commended the Bible 
should be mentioned one who is confessed by Christians and 
skeptics the greatest and best of men, Jesus Curist, who 
used the Psalms as His prayer and hymn book, and always 
spoke of the whole Old Testament as the Eternal Law Book 
of humanity. There is not time, nor is it necessary now 
to answer in detail all the hard questions that can be asked 
about single Bible passages. But these great men and 
Christ saw all these points of difficulty, and yet accepted 
the Bible as the pre-eminent book, commending it to the 
perusal of all as the source of the mind’s grandest inspira- 
tions. Side by side with these scores of the world’s fore- 
most men who declare the Bible the best of books, or 
strongly commend it, or point to it as the source of their 
grandest thoughts, put the opinion of that more learned (‘%), 
more profound (?), more unprejudiced (4) scholar and phi- 
losopher, Colonel Ingersoll, who stands almost alone among 
educated men in strongly condemning the Bible, which his 
bigotry prints with a small “b” in spite of the rules of 
grammar, and describes it as about the worst book of the 
world, in these words among others: “If men will read 
the Bible as they read other books, they will be amazed that 
they ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite 
wisdom to be the author of such ignorance and of such 


38 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


atrocity. The Bible burned heretics, built dungeons, 
founded the inquisition, and trampled upon all the liberties 


of men. All the philosophy of the Bible would not make 


one scene in Hamlet. I could write a better book than the 
Bible, which is full of barbarism.” 


Amazing Ignorance of Infidels Concerning the Scriptures—Hume’s 
Ignorance of the New Testament— Tom Paine | 
Without a Bible. 

‘‘ But some one asks, Are there not other eminent men 
who have despised and condemned the Bible? Most cer- 
tainly, as there are those who have entered their protest 
against almost any and everything mentionable. It is, 
nevertheless, worthy of note that, in most instances, those 
who have sought the more resolutely to defame the Holy 
Scriptures are those who are comparatively unacquainted 
with them. David Hume, distinguished both as essayist 
and historian, standing among the most noted of modern 
skeptical philosophers, was a resolute objector of the Bible, 
but was notoriously ignorant of its contents. Dr. Johnson, 
in conversation with several literary friends, once observed, 
in his usual, direct, and unequivocal manner, that no hon- 
est man could be a deist, because no man could be so after 
a fair examination of the truths of Christianity. When 
the name of Hume was mentioned to him as an exception 
to his remark, he replied: ‘ No, sir; Hume once owned to 
a clergyman in the bishopric of Durham, that he had never 
read even the New Testament with attention.’ ”’* 


Let us cross-question another important witness as to his 


knowledge of the book against which he offers testimony. 
We ask Thomas Paine as to his familiarity with the Bible, 
which he so bitterly condemns, and he replies, I keep no 


Bible.” I hold in my hand a sermon preached in New 


* From ‘“‘ What Noted Men Think of the Bible.” 


We f. CHAPTS” REPLY. 39 


York City, by Rev. W. F. Hattield, in reply to Mr. Inger- 
soll’s lecture on Thomas Paine, in which reply, with abund- 
ant facts, such as would convince a court, it is shown con- 
clusively that Thomas Paine was vicious and corrupt in life, 
and miserable and remorseful in death. As to the value of 
Voltaire’s testimony against Christianity, Carlyle declares it 
worthless on the ground of lack of knowledge on the sub- 
ject of which he testifies. He says: “It is a serious 
ground of offense against Voltaire that he intermeddled in 
religion without being himself, in any measure, religious; 
that, in a word, he ardently, and with long-continued effort, 
warred against Christianity, without understanding, beyond 
the mere superfices, what Christianity was.” 

There are also a class of specialists who are quoted against 
the Bible, and who manifest a hostility to it, whose testi- 
mony is of little value because of the narrow range in 
which they have studied, making them authorities only in 
their special department. Halley, the astronomer, once 
avowed his skepticism in presence of Sir Isaac Newton. 
‘The venerable man replied: ‘Sir, you have never studied 
these subjects and I have. Do not disgrace yourself as a 
philosopher by presuming to judge on questions you have 
never examined.” : 


Distributed Ignorance and Concentrated Hatred—Probable Cause 
of Ingersoll’s Infidelity. 


The largest proportion of skeptics, however, are mere 
sophomores, spoiled with a little learning which is only 
“distributed ignorance,” well represented by a precocious 
boy of fourteen, whom I found writing an essay on “ Mat- 
rimony,” and who left it during my call to argue in favor 
of Ingersollism and against the Bible (of which he knew 
.as little as of matrimony), which he admitted he had never 
read, as do nearly all skeptics when questioned on this 


40 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


matter. The bitterness of the opposition to Christianity 
of Mr. Ingersoll and other infidels is explained by the Karl 
of Rochester, who was converted from infidelity and said, 
in explanation of his former course and that of others: “A 
bad heart, a bad heart is the great objection against the Holy 
Book.” “The fool hath said in his heart” (not his head) 
“there is no God.” The bad heart is father to the infidel 
thought. It is like the case of the old woman who broke 
her looking-glass because it showed the wrinkles creeping 
into her fading face. Men strive to break the Bible glass 
that shows the wrinkles and defects of character. The 
whole appearance and tone and spirit of Mr. Ingersoll in 
his lectures is suggestive of this heart hatred against the 
book which he attacks, “ kicks,” “hates,” not with the 
calmness of logic, but with the bitterness of a heart-hos- 
tility. Those infidels who have faithfully examined the 
Bible have usually been convinced of its truth and con- 


verted to Christianity. Among them, such distinguished . 


names as Lord Lyttleton, Gilbert West, Soame Jenyus, 
Bishop Thompson, and at least a score of notable cases in 
connection with Mr. Moody’s revival meetings in England. 
“What comparison, let us ask, will the number of cele- 
brated skeptics, even when the best possible showing is 
made, hold with the distinguished men who have ranked 
the sacred volume above all others?) Remember that your 
mother’s love for the Bible and your own early reverence 
for it, have the indorsement of the grandest and profound- 
est minds which have been known and honored among 
humanity.” 


The Truth of the Whole Maiter. 


But salvation is not by belief in a book, or a creed, or a 
Church, but by belief in the person of Jesus Christ. Mr. 
Ingersoll skips this hard problem, ‘ What think ye of 


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W. F. CRAFTS’ REPLY. 41 


Christ?’ He hardly refers to this citadel of Christianity 
half a dozen times in all his lectures, making his attacks 
chiefly on human outposts and then claiming to have over- 
borne the citadel of Christianity. Even Strauss, Renan, 
Rousseau, Theodore Parker, Napoleon, and Richter—none 
of them experimental Christians—unite as a jury in the 
verdict expressed by Richter in regard to Christ, “ He is 
the purest among the mighty, the mightiest among the 
pure.” We have, then, two facts as a sure anchorage of our 
Christianity to-day. All scholarly skepticism agrees with 
Christianity that the Bible is the best of books and that 
Christ is the best of men. He who thus accepts the Bible 
and Christ can not logically or consistently stop short of a 
Christian life, following Christ as his pattern, and walking 
by the Bible as his rule. 

We may differ about creeds, and Church forms, and Bible 
interpretation, but he who has faith and faithfulness toward 
the person, Jesus Christ shall be saved. Let us then 
devoutly utter the creed of Daniel Webster, as. inscribed 
by his own request on his tombstone at Marshfield: 


** LORD, I 
BELIEVE, HELP 
THOU MINE UNBELIEF. 
PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENT 
_ BSPECIALLY THAT DRAWN FROM 
THE VASTNESS OF THE UNIVERSE IN COM: 
PARISON WITH THE APPARENT INSIGNIFIOANCE 
OF THIS GLOBE, HAS SOMETIMES SHAKEN MY REASON 
FOR THE FAITH THAT IS IN ME}; BUT MY HEART HAS 
ASSURED ME THAT THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST MUST 
BE A DIVINE REALITY. THE SERMON ON THE 
MOUNT CAN NOT BE A MERELY HUMAN 
PRODUCTION. ‘THIS BELIEF ENTERS 
{NTO THE VERY DEPTH OF MY 
CONSCIENCE. THE WHOLE 
HISTORY OF MAN 
PROVES It.” 


FE ks 


~ 


CHAPLAIN McCABE’S REPLY. 43 


CHAPLAIN M’CABE’S REPLY. 


The Famous Chaplain has a Remarkable Dream—He Sees the 
Great City of Ingersollville—Which Ingersoll and the Infidel 
Host Enter—And are Shut in for Six Months—Remarkable 
Condition of Things Outsido and Inside—Happiness and Mis- 
ery—Ingersoll Finally Petitions for a Church and sends for 
a Lot of Preachers. 

I had a dream which was not alla dream. I thought I 
was on a long journey through a beautiful country, when 
suddenly I came to a great city with walls fifteen feet high. 
At the gate stood a sentinel, whose shining armor reflected 
back the rays of the morning sun. As I was about to 
salute him and pass into the city, he stopped me and said: 

“Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?” 

I answered: “ Yes, with all my heart.” 

“ Then,” said he, “ you can not enter here. No man or 
woman who acknowledges that name can pass in here 
Stand aside!"’ said he, “ they are coming.” 

I looked down the road, and saw a vast multitude 
approaching. It was led by a military officer. 

“ Who is that?’ I asked of the sentinel. | 

“That,” he replied, “is the great Colonel Robert I : 
the founder of the City of Ingersollville.” 

“ Who is he?’ [ ventured to inquire. 

“ He is a great and mighty warrior, who fought in many 
bloody battles for the Union during the great war.” 

I felt ashamed of my ignorance of history, and stood 
silently watching the procession. I had heard of a Colonel 


44 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


]———_, * ig id “ 2 but, of 
course, this could not be the man. 

The procession came near enough for me to recognize 
some of the faces. I noted two infidel editors of national 
celebrity, followed by great wagons containing steam presses. 
There were also five members of Congress. 

All the noted infidels and scoffers of the country seemed 
to be there. Most of them passed in unchallenged by the 
sentinel, but at last a meek-looking individual with a white 
necktie approached, and he was stopped. I saw at a glance 
it was a well-known “ liberal”? preacher of New York. 

“Do you believe in the Lord Jesus?” said the sentinel. 

“ Not much!” said the doctor. 

Everybody laughed, and he was allowed to pass in. 

There were artists there, with glorious pictures; singers, 
with ravishing voices; tragedians and comedians, whose 
names have a world-wide fame. 

Then came another division of the infidel host—saloon- 
keepers by thousands, proprietors of gambling hells, brothels, 
and theatres. 


Still another division swept by: burglars, thieves, thugs, 


incendiaries, highwaymen, murderers — all—all marching 
in. My vision grew keener. I beheld, and lo! Satan him- 
self brought up the rear. 

High afloat above the mass was a banner on which was 
inscribed: ‘ What has Christianity done for the country?’ 
and another on which was inscribed: “Down with the 
churches! Away with Christianity—it interferes with our 
happiness!” And then came a murmur of voices, that 
grew louder and louder until a shout went up like the roar 
of Niagara: “Away with Him! Orucify Him, crucify 
Him!” I felt no desire now to enter Ingersollville. 

As the last of the procession entered, a few men and 
women, with broad-brimmed hats and plain bonnets, made 


CHAPLAIN McCABE’S REPLY. 45 


their appearance, and wanted to go in as missionaries, but 
they were turned rudely away. A zealous young Metho- 
dist exhorter, with a Bible under his arm, asked permission 
to enter, but the sentinel swore at him awfully. Then I 
thought I saw Brother Moody applying for admission, but 
he was refused. I could not help smiling to hear Moody 
say, as he turned sadly away: 

“Well! they let me live and work in Chicago; it-is very 
strange they won’t let me into Ingersollville.” 

The sentinel went inside the gate and shut it with a 
bang; and I thought, as soon as it was closed, a mighty 
angel came down with a great iron bar, and barred the gate 
on the outside, and wrote upon it in letters of fire, “ Doomed 
to live together six months.”” Then he went away, and all 
was silent, except the noise of the revelry and shouting that 
came from within the city walls. 

I went away, and as I journeyed through the land I could 
not believe my eyes. Peace and plenty smiled everywhere. 
The jails were all empty, the penitentiaries were without 
occupants. The police of great cities were idle. Judges 
sat in court-rooms with nothing to do. Business was brisk. 
Many great buildings, formerly crowded with criminals, 


were turned into manufacturing establishments. Just about 


this time the President of the United States called for a 
Day of Thanksgiving. I attended services in a Presby- 
terian Church. The preacher dwelt upon the changed con- 
dition of affairs. As he went on, and depicted the great 
prosperity that had come to the country, and gave reasons 
for devout thanksgiving, I saw one old deacon clap his 
handkerchief over his mouth to keep from shouting right 
out. An ancient spinster, who never did like the “ noisy ” 
Methodists—a regular old blue-stocking Presbyterian— 
ecouldn’t hold in. She expressed the thought of every heart 
by shouting with all her might, “Glory to God for Inger- 


46 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


sollville!’ A young theological student lifted up his hand 
and devoutly added, “ L’sto perpetua.” Everybody smiled. 
The country was almost delirious with joy. Great pro- 
cessions of children swept along the highways, singing, 
“ We'll not give up the Bible, 
God’s blessed Word of Truth.” 

Vast assemblies of reformed inebriates, with their wives. 
and children, gathered in the open air. No building would 
hold them. I thought I was in one meeting where Bishop 
Simpson made an address, and as he closed it a mighty 
shout went up till the earth rang again. O, it was won- 


derful ! and then we all stood up and sang with tears of joy, 


‘“ All hail the power of Jesus’ name! 
Let angels prostrate fall ; 

Bring forth the royal diadem, 
And crown him Lord of all.” 
The six months had well-nigh gone. I made my way 
back again to the gate of Ingersollville. A dreadful silence 
reigned over the city, broken only by the sharp crack of a 
revolver now and then. I saw aman trying:to get in at the 
gate, and I said to him, “ My friend, where are you from?” 
“T live in Chicago,” said he, “and they’ve taxed us to- 


death there; and I’ve heard of this city, and I want to go 


in to buy some real estate in this new and growing place.” 


He failed utterly to remove the bar, but by some means. 


he got a ladder about twelve feet long, and with its aid, he 
climbed up upon the wall. With an eye to busta he 
shouted to the first person he saw: 

“ Hallo, there !—what’s the price of real estate in agers 
sollville ?” 

“ Nothing !” shouted a voice; “you can have all you 
want if you’ll just take it and pay the taxes.” 

“ What made your taxes so high?” said the Chicka man.. 
I noted the answer carefully; I shall never forget it. 


: 
a 


CHAPLAIN McCABE’S REPLY. 47 


“ We've had to build forty new jails and fourteen peni- 
tentiaries—a lunatic asylum and an orphan asylum in 
every ward; we’ve had to disband the public schools, and 
it takes all the city revenue to keep up the police force.” 

“Where’s my old friend, I——-?” said the Chicago man. 

“QO, he is going about to-day with a subscription paper 
to build a church. They have gotten up a petition to send 
out for a lot of preachers to come and hold revival services. 
If we can only get them over the wall, we hope there’s a 
future for Ingersollville yet.” 

The six months ended. - Instead of opening the door, 
however, a tunnel was dug under the wall big enough for 
one person to crawl through at a time. First came two 
bankrupt. editors, followed by Colonel I himself; and 
then the whole population crawled through. “Then I 
thought, somehow, great crowds of Christians surrounded 
the city. There was Moody, and Hammond, and Earle, 
and hundreds of Methodist preachers and exhorters, and 
ay struck up, singing together, 


“Come, ye sinners, poor and needy.” 

A needier crowd never was seen on earth before. 

I conversed with some of the inhabitants of the aban- 
doned city, and asked a few of them this question: 

“ Do you believe in Hell?’ 

I can not record the answers; they were terribly orthodox. 

One old man said, ‘“ I’ve been there on probation for six 
months, and I don’t want to join.” 

I knew by that he was an old Methodist backslider. The 
sequel of it all was a great revival, that gathered in a 
mighty harvest from the ruined City of Ingersollville. 


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DR. SWAZHY’S REPLY. 49 


DR. SWAZEY’S REPLY. 


Momentary View of Col. Ingersoll Through the Doctor’s Glass— 
The Bible on the Meridian—What the Doctor Sees in 
the Great Book. 

Tue genial, eloquent, sensational, unfair, evasive Colonel 
Ingersoll has come and gone. Nobody has been alarmed. 
But out of 400,000 people a large audience was found to 
laugh with him at Moses and the Bible. He eschewed 
argument altogether. He did not attempt to instruct any- 
body. He had only a campaign speech to make against— 
God. This article is simply an invitation to any fair- 
minded doubter to consider the reasonableness of a laugh 
at the Christian’s Bible. Is this book a bad book, or a 
silly book, just fit for jeer and sarcasm? Take a common- 
sense view. In order to do so, it is necessary to take a 
-common-place view, to bring to the foreground that which 
all assailants like to leave in the background, namely, that 
the Bible teaches by commandment and precept only that 
which is pure and good. 

Relating to man’s duty to himself, it teaches personal 
purity, sexual and otherwise; temperance in meats, drinks, 
opinions and ambition, responsibleness for inclinations, 
_ thoughts and actions; a paramount love for the truth; 
courage and hopefulness in all lawful purposes; self-im- 
provement, and a cheerful enjoyment of the good things of 
life. Relating to man’s duty to others, the Bible teaches 
honesty between man and man; restitution when wrong 
has been done, wittingly or unwittingly; the damnableness 

4 


50 : MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


of adultery, seduction, and everything that violates the 
purity of a family or a person; tlie forgiveness of injuries; 
a charitable view of human actions, including patience and 
forbearance, mercy; the duty of life-long usefulness, kind- 
ness and helpfulness; a genial temper in social and business 
life; obedience to magistrates; and a multitude of minor 
virtues. Jtelating to the moral order of things, the Bible 
teaches that wrong-doing is unavoidably the way of sorrow, 
‘ and right-doing the way of happiness. 

‘These teachings, given not in bald outline, but in fresh 
and animated pictures and discourses, make up the ethical 
system of the Bible from the first lesson of the antediluvian 
age to the last words of the book, which are against whore- 
mongers, and all makers and lovers of a lie, and in praise 
of all who are just and good. And, still further, in no 
instance is there‘left on record an immoral precept, or one 
which impurity, or injustice, or dishonesty, or unkindness, 
or selfishness in any form are proposed. There is no mis- 
take in that direction. Still further, we challenge any 
assailant to name a virtue, acknowledged to be such by the 
mass of mankind, which is wanting in the catalogue of 
Bible virtues. The ethical system is as complete as it is 
pure, as comprehensive as it is sound and true, absolutely 
covering the whole area of man’s duty to himself and to 
his fellow-man; a system sounding all depths, touching the 
most delicate fibres of life, and without a flaw or an omis- 
sion. Its precepts and laws come in their own order, but 
they all appear in the record first or last. The Buddhistic 
“decalogue” seems to have been in advance of the Mosaic 
in this—that it had two commandments wanting in the lat- 
ter—* Thou shalt not lie,” “Thou shalt not get drunk.” 
But these commandments, although not-in our own deea- 
logue, are written over and over again in the Old Testament 
as well as the New. And yet once more the moral require- 


DR. SWAZHY’S REPLY. 51 


ments of the Bible, are as clear of puerilities as they are of 
impurity or oblique vision. The Buddhistic decalogue 
steps right down to a moral weakness of which the Bible is 
never guilty. ‘Thou shalt not visit dances nor theatrical 
representations.” “ Thou shalt not use ornaments nor per- 
fumery in dress.” 


Occultation of Ingersoll’s Good Sense—General Survey of Deities 
—Scope of Divine Revelation. 


Now the common-sense question occurs whetner a book 
containing such a system, always teaching men what is 
good and pure, always warning him against evil, and 
encouraging him to be a strong, sound, pure, complete man 
in everything, is worthy of sneers, ribaldry and irrever- 
ence, even though it were full of unbelievable fables and 
fantastic ideas of immortality. In what spirit can a com- 
pany of people shout their applause when a book whose 
lines of thought are always leading a man above himself 
is made the target of sarcasm and ridicule, and the cry is 
almost in so many words, ‘ Down with the Bible!’ Let 
us go alittle beyond the strictly ethical. The general ideas 
of our Bible about God commend themselves to the best 
wisdom of mankind. We make no reference now to any 
sect of theologies, but to the theological atmosphere both 
of the Old and New Testaments, namely, that God is, 
and being the Creator, the life and force of all things, in 
other words, as our Bible has it, the Living God, superin- 
tends all human affairs. Asa Oreator He has not forgotten 
His work; as a Father He is always mindful of His off- 
springs; and caring for man is leading him on by a great 
hope to a great inheritance; that His face is against evil 
doing, that He smiles on all whostrive to be just and good, 
and that in sorrow and want and temptation He folds to 
His great heart a rightéous and even a repentant man; and 


§2 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


as the shuttle goes back and forth, knitting into each other 
the soiled and blood-stained threads, He is weaving there- 
from a garment of light for. mankind; that superstition, 
despotism, slavery and war are only other names for His 
patience, while man is learning the great lesson. This is 
the Bible interpretation of the incomprehensible Cause and 
Spirit of the universe, that He is alive, and the Father and 
Friend of man now, and will have some more for him after 
the years have rolled by. 

Suppose, now, it be all untrue, is there not something in 
this dream or conceit that should bring a sigh rather than 
a sneer from the heart of the unbeliever? The god of 
Brahmanism is an ‘abstraction without attributes, the great 
nothing of the universe. Much the same is true of Budd- 
hism, only in another way. It has law and virtue, but no 


God of love, and asks no trust or faith. The same is true. 


in the unchanging round which knows no spirit above and 
no hope below, taught by Confucius to his disciples. The 


religion of the Persians presented a god who had a deyil-. 


god for a yokefellow, keeping up the eternal and never-to- 
be-ended quarrei of good and evil. Our Bible begins with 
the idea that God is one God, the only and the Supreme, 
and ends with this one God sending angels down to say to 
the weary world, ‘ Peace on earth good will to men.” 
Away beyond all the faiths and all the Bibles held sacred 
by mankind, ours alone declares that man is not an orphan, 
that good and evil are not eternal antagonisms, in other 
words, that the Great Supreme is our Father in Heaven. 
Trueor false, wisdom has taught nothing more inspiriting or 
helpful to man. Neither imagination nor credulity has else- 
where painted a vision so attractive, or outof the “silences” 
and “ eternities,” and mysteries, whispered so good a word 
in the ears of mortals. This idea of lordship and father- 


hood is not incidental. It runs through every. narration, 
+] 


DR. SWAZHY’S REPLY. 58 


is implied in every precept, and re-affirmed in every prom- 
ise. And even if it be beyond proof it makes the whole 
Bible at least a golden dream. 

Suppose now one does not take as absolutely and histor- 
ically true the story of Adam’s rib and the woman, or of 
the fish swallowing a man and throwing him unhurt on the 
shore, does not the high moral tone of every command 
and every precept everywhere illumined by ‘this pure and 
golden dream, entitle this book to the reverence of man- 
kind? And especially since by the common consent the idea 
of virtue in our Bible goes beyond the many excellent 
things of Confucius, Zoroaster and the other sacred writers 
of other religions, and its idea of the “living God” sur- 
passes in purity and attractiveness, and in consolation and 
hope, all other religions, is not this purest blossom of the 
instinct, if you please to call it so, of duty and faith, of 
inestimable value as the guide and hope of man, even 
though it were overlaid with ten-fold more difficulties than 
the most ingenious scoffer can present? Or, if it is not 
reliable as a guide, is it not worthy of reverence as the 
proudest achievement of the hungry mind of man? 


The Great Central Figure—Absolute Unity of the Bible System. 


Still further, this Bible has for its central, or rather ter- 
minal, figure a name so remarkable that none but the 
obscene and profane use it lightly, a man so remarkable 
that whatever the skeptic may say of Moses or Paul, his 
tongue would refuse its office should he attempt to catalogue 
the mistakes of Jesus of Nazareth. Voltaire, Diderot, 
Bolingbroke, Strauss, Renan, all speak reverently of this 
One Man of history. And yet the whole New Testament 
is built up on the sayings and doings of this Man. And 
not the New Testament only. The Jewish scriptures, full 
of errors or not, were full of the ideas of a Messiah, from 


54 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


Moses to Malachi. And this marvelous man claimed that 
He was that Messiah. So that the Old Testament, as well, 
is a record of various forms pointing to this Man. TI raise 
here no question of the truth of prophecy; I simply affirm 
that this Man, whose purity and wisdom are so singularly 
impressive, claimed to be the fulfillment of those old 
writings, identified Himself with Moses and David and 
Isaiah, and sanctified the great current of thought which 
from the mouths of these men flowed along the shores of 
that elder world. So that to revile the old Bible of the 
Jews is to revile Him. There is no scholar, orthodox or 
liberal, believing or skeptical, who docs not identify the 
phenomenon of Christianity with the phenomenon of 
Judaism. Out of the soil of Judaic history sprung this 
purer growth—Jesus and the things He taught. 

I suggest, therefore, that before one joins in the laugh 
against a religion which was founded long anterior to any 
other historical records than its own, he pause a little, 
remembering that this remarkable Man, who has not yet 
become antiquated, quoted those old books as His Bible, 
and doubtless had a tolerable understanding of their mean- 
ing and worth. And, perhaps, if He whose sermon on the 
mount is yet as fresh in the nineteenth century as though 
it were uttered to-day, found a vein of precious ore in 
those books, those same veins may be yet visible in our 
time, 


The Bible Law of Development vs. Infidel Philosophy. 


I have given, you will perceive, room for a large amount 
of the unaccountable and incredible in a Bible worthy of 
reverence. In fact, there is no occasion, except in the 
peculiarity of some men’s minds, to allowso much. There 
is a passage in the Bible that is descriptive of the kingdom 
of Heaven, and reads thus; “ First the blade and then the 


eres 


DR. SWAZEHY’S REPLY. 55 


ear, and after that the full corn in the ear.” The Bible 
here gives the key to itself. It is a statement of the law of 
development, intellectual and moral. An observation of 
the Bible from the standpoint of this law discovers an 
answer to the objections that are just now brought against 
our sacred Book. Col. Ingersoll and men of his style of 
criticism (and, I am sorry to say, some preachers, also,) 
quote a verse from Genesis precisely as though the same 
words, or the same event, were found in the Gospels. 
They judge an act or a usage recorded in the Pentateuch 
precisely as though it were found in the Acts of the Apos- 
tles. They make no allowance for the stage of human 
progress. They would teach a child surveying before he 
had learned the multiplication table. They talk about 
“skulls” as indicating progress, but God must needs put 
the same ideas into a skull of the Laurentian period that 
He does into a skull of to-day. Otherwise, God is worthy 
of hate. They would preach the doctrine of equality on 
the‘deck of a man-of-war. They utterly ignore the drill 
that men and nations need in coming up to their majority. 
They would suffer the rabble in a court-room to vote down 
the decision of a judge on the bench. The men who are 
historically connected with God’s order of things must dis- 
pense with the great schoolmaster—experience. Ideas 


“must spring forth complete, like Minerva. Rafters and 


dome must touch the skies the same day the foundation 


stones were laid. Those are the ideas with which a certain 


class of critics approach the Old Testament. If a people 
are not ripe for a commonwealth, and God gives them a 
king, God is all wrong. If a people are become a great 
military camp and Moses proclaims martial law, Moses and 
his God are monsters of cruelty. If there are no jails, no 
way of disposing of prisoners of war, and a gentle servi- 
tude is the substitute, God isa great slave-driver. If men’s 


» 
Ie 
Ly ae 


56 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


lusts are so greedy that even the best of them want more 
wives than one, the patience of God with the slow growth 
of moral ideas is translated as the establishment of polyg- 
amy. If a people are so vile and filthy that the beasts are 
clean and modest in comparison, and God sends an army 
to wipe them out of being, we are pointed to the white 
faces of women and children lifted on the crests of the 
divine wrath! 


Common Sense View of the Subject—How it Eliminates Poly- 
gamy, Slavery, etc. 


Common sense, in asking whether the Bible is worthy of 
confidence would ask whether, as matter of fact, the moral 
instruction of any period of Bible record was not fully up 
to the capacity of that period to receive it? It would ask 
another question—namely, whether a divine tuition is dif- 
ferent from any other, except that it is more skillful¢— 
whether, in fact, the critics who compare an old order of 
things with the highest state of moral development are not 
demanding that the people under God’s training shall be a 
miraculous people, throwing off prejudices as they do a 
Winter garment, bearing fruit without any intermediate 
period of growth and blossom, and, in general terms, upset- 
ting the every-day laws of progress. It is this idealism— 
than which nothing is more irrational—which creates a 
large share of the moral difficulties of the Old Testa- 
ment. It is the insane or reckless, the idiotic or perverse 
tenacity with which men demand that the divine teaching 
must not suit itself to the time in which it was given, but . 
must always be up to the ripest periods of progress, that 
gives any opportunity for the objugations of men who 
“ean write a better Bible” themselves than ours. 

The two great charges brought against the Bible are 
polygamy and slavery, Now, admit that in all stages, 


DR. SWAZHY’S REPLY. 57 


from the chimpanzee up to Darwin, they are wrong (which 
is by no means clear), are these charges true? The fact 
that polygamy and slavery existed among the people who 
were under drill does not prove it. The fact that there 
were laws regulating either of these practices does not 
prove it. A law regulating the social evil does not prove 
that the sovereign people who make the laws approve the 
social evil, but only that, if men and women will go wrong, 
society must put up some defenses against corruption. 
Common sense inquires whether statutory allowance is an 
indorsement. And if that Remarkable Man, commenting 
on the divorce laws of Moses, said that Moses gave those 
laws because the people could not bear any better laws, 
common sense inquires if the same may not be true of 
other recognized usages which are below the ideal of an 
advanced age. 

And when one rails at the Bible for its ill-treatment of 
women, the railing is simply gratuitous. I have read the 
Old Testament more or less carefully for many years, but I 
do not, at this writing, remember a single word that dis- 
honors woman as woman. I have redd only a little of 
Brahminical writings, but I remember a sentence or two 
about women. “A woman is never fit for independence;” 
“ Women have no business with the text of the Veda. 
* * * Sinful women must be as foul as falsehood itself. 
This is fixed law.”’ Whether in the last quotation it is: 
meant that there is no purification for a bad woman, or 
what else, I do not know; but I do not recall anything like 
it in the Old Testament. Educated common sense knows 
that women among the Hebrews occupied a vastly higher 
level than the women of all other nations. It is simply 
notorious, that with all the lapses from virtue, the Hebrew 
women were as white as snow compared with the women 
of the Gentile world, and honor goes always hand in hand 
with virtue. 


58 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


More Common Sense—The Great Ingersoll Orb Approaching 
the Nihilistic Belt — Nebule. 

Common sense demands that in judgment of the moral 
worth of the Bible, it be taken as a whole. The theory of 
all who receive the Old and New Testaments is that they: 
belong together, are so to be interpreted; that one is the 


beginning, and the other the conclusion, of the one Bible. | 


The one begins in the “ Laurentian period,” so to speak, and 
follows. man up from a wild nomad to wealth and empire, 
and the decay of empire; the moral and the civil law blend- 
ing and running along together for hundreds of years, then 
Separating by the ae explosion of the civil powers. 
The other takes him after the wounds caused by the explo- 
sion have partly healed, and puts forth mozal ideas unen- 
cumbered by any considerations of the state. The former 
gave moral laws to the Jew; the latter moral laws to 
the man; everything from first to last going on as nat- 
urally as the building of a city, or the growth of a tree. 
And common sense should inquire how it happens, that, 
while the great army of scholars who have studied these 
systems, believers and skeptics alike, have been filled with 
admiration, a man rises up now and then to vituperate the 
logic of events and malign the great God because He has 
not chosen to plant a tree with the branches in the ground 
and the roots in the air. 

Common sense naturally asks what the meaning of this 
bitter outbreak may be. We have no right to men’s 
motives. But this is a phenomenon, the cause of which 
we have a right to ask, as we would ask the cause of a fall- 
ing meteor. The Bible isa law and order book. It teaches 
that one must look out how he pulls up even the tares. 
Are we in our historic orbit passing a belt of nililism, a 
time when assassination is reform, and a bad shot at a poor 


DR. SWAZEHY’S REPLY. 59 


ezar, inheriting semi-barbarism and striving with all his 
might to get rid of the inheritance, is to be lamented? 

You may be told that it is the horrid theology of the 
Bible which provokes assault. Common sense remarks 
that, horrid as its theology may be, its sterner features are 
just like the theology of nature, namely, a demand for 
obedience to law and “the survival of the fittest.” It is 
nature put into language, the operation of moral causes 
foretold—that is all. If you want a government more just 
than one which judges a man Aeuccdine to his deeds, good 
or bad, and takes into account his knowledge and oppor- 
tunities, why, the thing to do is to rail at nature, at cause 
and effect, at eee and harvest. For while on the 
better side the Bible theology is more beneficent than 
nature, on the hard side it is simply unmitigated natural 
law. Do the theologians preach that good men will be 
damned? Then rail at the theologians, and not at the 
Bible. 

In closing this short article, as an addendum, let me ask 
a question or two for the benefit of all who have a bad 
opinion of the Bible, as a woman’s book or a slave’s book. 

1. Forget the harem of Solomon, and say why Judaism 
was a house of refuge for thousands of Roman and Greek 
women, many of them of noble birth, for a century pre- 
ceding the Christian era ? %, 

2. ie the same line, squarely, has, or has not, the mod- 
ern estate of woman been the fruit of Christian (including 
Judaic) teaching? 

3. Did not the Bible first mitigate and finally destroy 
slavery in the Roman empire ? 

4, Did not the Bible destroy slavery in England and 
America? Charge all the slave-driving you will to Chris- 
tian men, and give any unbeliever all he claims, and then 
go down to a last analysis. 


60 UISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


5. Are not republican institutions, including (as the old 
republics did not) democratic ideas, directly and palpably 
the fruit of the teachings of that remarkable Man (whom 
the French infidels called the Great Democrat); whose 
Bible was the Old Testament, and who told His followers 
how to amend and finish it by a book called the New Test- 
ament ? 

In whatever way these questions may be answered, the 
man who essays to answer them will find that it is not so 
easy to eliminate the genius of Moses and Jesus from the 
genius of the world’s movement toward virtue, equality and 
liberty. ‘ 

Tri the Prince that this (a costly copy of the Bible) is 
the secret of England’s greatness.—Queen Victoria. 

I HAvE always said and always will say, that the studious 
perusal of the Sacred Volume will make better citizens, 
better fathers and better husbands.— Zhomas Jefferson. 


Tue Bible is equally adapted to the wants and infirmi- 
ties of every human being. No other book ever addressed 
itself so authoritatively and so pathetically to the judgment 
and moral sense of mankind.—Chancellor James Kent. 


Curist proved that He was the Son of the Eternal by 
His disregard of time. All His doctrines signify only, 
and the same thing, eternity —WVapoleon Bonaparte. 


I wave read the Bible morning, noon and night, and 
have ever since been the happier and better man for such 
reading.—_ _Ldward Burke. ) 

I po not believe human society, including not merely a 
few persons in any state, but whole masses of men, ever 
has attained, or ever can attain, a high state of intelli- 


gence, virtue, security, liberty, or happiness without the 
Holy Scriptures.— Willam H. Seward. 


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DR. COLLYHR’S REPLY. 63 


DR. COLLY ER’S REPLY. 


Dr. Collyer Relates a Little Story—A Book that cost Mr. Ingersoll 
the Governorship of Ilinois—The Volume Philosophically 
Considered—Heavy Blows. 

I nave been told a gentleman went to see Mr. Ingersoll 
once, when he lived in Peoria, and finding a fine copy of 
Voltaire in his library, said, ‘“ Pray, Sir, what did this cost 
you?” “TI believe it cost me the governorship of the State 
of [llinois,”’ was the swift and pregnant answer. 1 can not 
but recall the incident as he stands in the light of his lec- 
ture. Heseems to be saying, “It is my turn now, and I 
will do what I can to square the account. I will dethrone 
your God to-day amid peals of laughter; blow His being 
down the wind on the wings of myepigrams. I have those 
about me who will send my words flying all over the state, 
I will start a crusade which will shut up your churches 
some day, silence your immemorial prayers, slay all the 
hopes that would strive after something more than this 
momentary gleam between the eternities, make of no 
account the grand deep truth that ‘life struck sharp on 
death makes awful lightning,’ and so dwarf our human 
kind that when we get man where we want him he shall 
never again be able to look over the low billows of his green 
graves, and end the fight by making my own creed good 
once, for all that 

Man, God’s last work, who seemed so fair, 
Such splendid purpose in his eyes, 
Who rolled the psalms in wintry skies, 

Who built him fanes for fruitless prayer, 


64 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


Who trusted God was love indeed, 
And love, creation’s final law; 
Though nature red, in tooth and claw, 
With raven, shrieked against his creed; 
Who loved, who suffered countless ills, 
Who battled for the true and just, 
Is-blown about the desert dust, 
And sealed within the iron hills.” 


Now, since we first knew Mr. Ingersoll by report, there 
has been a time when those who can only believe in God as 
a rather helpless little brother, by no means able to take 
care of Himself, and in themselves as big brothers, who 
are bound to stand up for Him, might have felt there was 
grave danger in such a sight as we have witnessed—of a 
vast array of men and women, some of them it is fair to 
believe of a thoughtful turn, assembled to hear the last and 
best word which can be said why (sod should be dethroned, 
and His presence and providence numbered among the 
things that seemed true enough once, but pass away inevit- 
ably in the process through which we arise from “ our dead 
selves to higher things,” 


Sparks Flying in all Directions—Singular Mental Phenomenon 
Occasioned by $25.000 a Year. 


He was clothed once in a fine austerity; went on his 
lonely way quite content, to give grave and serious reasons 
for rejecting what so many of us hold dearer than our life, 
and was faithful to his instinct and insight, though such 
ovations as were ever given him—as Dr. Dyer used to say of 
the old abolitionists—might take the form mainly of rotten 
eggs. I know of more than one man, who, in those days, 
nourished a deep and most tender regard for him, and 
found something noble in the stand he made for the best a 
man can do and be, who hasto abide so utterly alone. But 


Mr. Ingersoll, roystering around as the popular advocate of 


‘ 
4 


WE a oly) ves We 
BE ont \ 


DR. COLLYEHR’S REPLY. 65 


atheism, at $25,000 a year, as the common report goes, 
is quite another sort of a man. No doubt the laborer is 
worthy of his hire. Those who run the thing may be 
trusted to see to that, and a good many of us who stand 
on the other side may not be much better, according to 
the old proverb that it is “money makes the mare go.” 


_ ‘Still, as this always turns the fine edge of owr endeavor, - 


and makes us weak for good when we make it at all a 
matter of barter and sale, so it must be with Mr. Inger- 
soll, making him weak for what I can not but believe to 
be evil. He is no more in such a case than the second 
batch of reformers in the old times, who argued lustily 
for a reformation, while still they grew rich on the Church 
lands. No more than your Archbishop, in the Church of 
England, arguing on the godliness of tythes and priestly 
authority. So Mr. Ingersoll, in motley, trying to laugh 
the deepest and most sacred convictions of men down the 
wind under the guise of girding at the Pentateuch (for 
we must thank him, I say again, for the frankness with 
which he tells us this is his ultimate aim), is a very differ- 
ent man to the quiet, manful fellow we used to hear of in 
Peoria long ago, who won such regard from those who could 
at all understand him. The man in the ring, whose sole 
business it is to make you laugh, makes no converts even to 
rough riding. And so there is ground for neither hope nor 
fear, as we stand on that side or this, about the advance of 
atheism, so long as this remains as the best method of its 
choicest champions. It may make headway with such men 
as Voltaire had to handle, and in such times; but this 
serious and deep-hearted race of ours never did take to this 
kind of thing, and never will. It is only as the crackling 
of the thorns under a pot. 

Nor can this bitter and relentless spirit toward those who 
differ help the advocates of atheism any more than it does. 


5 


66 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


the advocates of the faith. Robert Southey says, in aletter 
to Sharon Turner, touching the contentions of his time 
between the sects, ‘“‘ When I hear the dissenters talk about 
Churchmen, I feel like a very high Churchman myself; but 
when I hear Churchmen talk about dissenters, I feel that I 
am a dissenter, too.” It was but the bias of a nature, in 


which the balances were still true, infavor of the side which . 


was dealt with most unfairly. The pleain the mind of one 
who could look on both sides with a calm concern, that the 
result of fighting over the lamp should not be to put out the 
light, or of contending over the nature and properties of the 
spring to soil the water so that no one could drink at it, be he 
ever so athirst. Lord Bacon says, “ there is a superstition 
in avoiding superstition, when those think they do best who 
go farthest; but care should be taken that the good should 
not be purged away with the bad, which commonly happens 
when this is the method.”’ So I think it must be with such 
violent and utter denunciation as this, which lies within 
the spirit of Mr. Ingersoll’s address. It has pleased a very 
bright and able man in our ranks to fall into accord with 
him in many things he has to say, and to show how we 
also hold this ground. I may be old-fashioned, and unfit 
for a fair judgment, but Iam very much of Southey’s mind, 
and when I hear orthodoxy denounced in such a spirit, I 
say I agree with Mr. Ingersoll nowhere. Here is bigotry 
of a new shape, denouncing bigots; and I sway to the other 
side for very charity, and the desire that the must good pos- 
sible should be found in any evil, and especially that one 
should think as well as possible of those who can not see as 
we do, but are still of as fine and clear a grain, and show 
as noble a soul of self-sacrifice—that uttermost and inner- 
most proof aman can give that he believes he is right. 


DR. COLLYERS RHPLY. 67 


The Clear Ring of Truth vs. the Dull Thud of the Baser Metal 
—Potency of Simple Statement—The Doctor’s Objections 
to Ingersoll’s Talk. 

Now, a man who seeks and loves the truth, must be 
esteemed in every human society; but so far as my own 
observation goes, the most of our fights and contentions 
carried on in such a spirit as this I am trying to touch, 
end in vast clouds of dust and smoke, in which the clear, 
shining sun of the truth turns blood-red to our human 
vision. And those who, even with the best intentions, are 
forever going about, as we say, with a chip on their shoul- 
der, are likely in the end to be voted a common nuisance. 
The truth must be told, no matter who gets hurt; the 
truth, or even semblance of the truth, which smites the 
man who tells it, and moves his heart so that he has to ery 
“ Woe is me if I preach not this Gospel!’ But the truth 
still comes to us through clear and simple statements which 
tell their own story, rather than through denial, denuncia- 
tion, satire, slang, and appeals to the top-gallery. So 
Channing thought, and the result is, that his best sermons 
are simply statements of the truth as it had come home to 
his own heart and mind. So Parker thought, and reading 
his life again, just now, I find there is nothing the man 
longed for so much as that he might be quiet, and just let 
the truth dome itself in his great fine heart and brain, while 
he regrets bitterly the evil times that compelled him to 
take to other methods; and the best work he ever did for 
the deep, still truth, are statements. So John Wesley 
thought, when once he struck his shining path from earth 
to heaven, and his sermons from 1740 to 1780, are simply 
statements of the ever-growing and ever-brightening truth 
God is revealing to man. And so even Calvin thought, 
and his earliest and best utterances are still statements, 
grim, hard, iron-clinched, but all the same the stern and 


68 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


inexorable affirmation, made good for all time, that neither 
priest nor Pope can play fast and loose with the Most High 
God. Always you find the greatest and best men when 
they themselves are at their best making statements, exactly 
as Jesus does in the sermon on the mount. Saying what 
is in them simply and sincerely, feeling sure, as Coleridge 
says, that “no authority can ever prevail in opposition to 
the truth.”” So Columbus holds himself before the Council 
of Salamanca, when a new world is in debate. So Stephen- 
son holds himself before the House of Lords, when he has 
to answer for his locomotive. So Newton affirms his dis- 
covery of the law of gravitation ; and Harvey, that of the 
circulation of the blood. That is the law of all truth-tell- 
ing in its noblest and best shape, and then the contention, 
if there is one, is simply the hiss, as Stebbing, of California, 
said once, when he was speaking in defence of the Chinese, 
“is simply the hiss the white-hot truth makes when it 
strikes the black waters of hell.” 

Here, then, is my radical objection to Mr. Ingersoll’s 
talk, apart from his final aim. It is conceived and done in 
a narrow and most bigoted spirit, by one who claims, above 
all things in the world, to be free from bigotry. The men 
of whom he speaks so unworthily are, take them by and 
large, worthy men. The things in the five books of Moses, 
so called, on which the fathers based their creeds, are 
rapidly passing into worthier meanings; and the day is not 
far distant when the old belief will have rotted down, and 
be as when an old tree rots, to become the nursing mother 
of a bed of violets. No man believes in such things any 
more, who has read and thought to any purpose; and the 
man who has not done this, had far better believe in the 
six days’ work and. one day’s rest, rib, serpent, fall, flood, 
ark, manna, and all the rest of those wonders, than in Mr. 
Ingersoll’s enormous and most fatal negation of God. 


DR. COLLYERS REPLY. 69 


Putting the Fine Edge on Orthodoxy—Taking a Weld with 
Prof. Swing and Dr. Thomas—Borax and Bigotry. 

Nor is that bad and bitter spirit in orthodoxy now which 
once found utterance in fire and the axe, as it did in far 
more ruthless ways in atheism when the goddess of Rea- 
son was the divinity of France. Orthodoxy, in a free-spoken 
land like ours, is very civil, indeed, and timid, as I think, 
almost to a fault, showing just the spirit which is no* sure 
the ground may not slip from under it any moment; and 
so far as its finest leaders go edging away trom the rocking 
base, as fast and as far the people for whom those men have 
to care will follow. Nothing could be more gentle than 
the way orthodoxy used Brother Swing. He was no more 
orthodox than you are. He might not think so, but that’s 
the truth, patent to the whole world. Yet the church to 
which he was preaching, and the old standbys, as we call 
them, said, “ This is what we are here for, and have laid 
out our money and time for, and, if you go back far 
enough, it is what our fathers shed their blood for., Dr. 
Swing must be true to his ancient vows, or leave.” If Mr. 
Ingersoll should ever lay out his money, and those of his 
mind put theirs to it, to build a great hall in Washington 
or Chicago for the propagation of atheism, and employ a 
man to preach to them, and then if this man should depart 
as far backward from their way of thinking as Brother 
Swing departed forward from that of the Presbyterians, 
they will be much more catholic and inclusive than I think 
they are if they use that man as gently. 

I do not mention this for proof of my word that ortho- 
doxy is getting to be very civil—indeed, gentle, timid, and 
even wanting in a proper courage to take care of its own 
household, if we are to judge from the half-and-half meas- 
ures they are taking with Mr. Talmadge, in Brooklyn, and 
the way in which they let him smife them on the mouth. 


40 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. — 


Orthodoxy has exchanged the old fetters of iron for silken 
bands with an elastic base. Brother Thomas, my dear and 
good friend, has no right to preach in a Methodist pulpit, 
and in the days I remember, would not have preached in 
one to this time. There must be a certain concert of opin- 
ion, capable of being brought within fair lines, or nobody 
would organize or hold anything. This is the secret of our 
most happy relation through all these years in this church. 
We hold together through a large, free, common opinion 
about certain grand verities. J should injure my own 
nature if I went over those lines. Yet men are continually 
going over them in the orthodox churches. But they bear 
and forbear, scold a little, fret a good deal, and trust the 
brother may see things different presently or depart in 
peace, and then, when there is no help for it, they lift him 
very gently out of the fold. 

Nor is the scorn Mr. Ingersoll pours out on these ancient 
books befitting any man who could feel his way to their 
heart, apart from any theory of inspiration or the use made 
of them to hinder human progress. It is the spirit of the 
Caliph he shows, who, when the question came up what - 
should be done with a superb library, said, “Burn it; what- 
ever is against the Koran ought to be burnt, and whatever 
agrees with the Koran is not needed.” With some such 
narrow vision he would judge these venerable monuments 
of the most ancient time; make an end of them to human 
credence; get them branded for worthless in the interests 
of human reason; and order himself toward them as if an 
iconoclast, looking over the treasures of the Louvre, should 
note only what is grotesque or painful, while he missed 
what is most beautiful and entrancing, tumble the whole 
into a heap, and burn it into ashes and lime. Men have 
misused these books, there can be no doubt of that, and 
turned some parts of them into bane, which, well used, 


DR. COLLYHRS REPLY. 71 


might bring blessing. So they tell me, there is no place 
that can match Peoria in its power to turn good grain into 
whisky; therefore, shovel Peoria into the river, and leave 
the smiling prairies where the grain grows, a waste. 
Nothing in the world shows a man s limitations so fatally 
as the play of this power which can not or will not distin- 
guish between the use and the abuse of things, or will over- 
look the abiding good because of the transient evil. We 
tolerate it easily in the child who turns in wrath on the 
chair against which he has bruised himself; we look twice 
at the man who does this, and then draw our own conclu- 
sion. I have been told, on good authority, that Mr. Inger- 
soll, in his childhood and his early youth, did get badly 
’ bruised against these books. Well, the books have to take 
it now; but is this the sign of a large and a gracious mind? 
One would think he might have gotten over it before this, 
and come to understand them better than mere instruments 
of hurt. I can agree in nothing touching the Bible and 
the soul’s life with the man who tells me his aim is to 
damage or destroy the faith of man in God, to the best of 
his ability; but if this was out of the way, one might not 
object to his antagonism to the misuse of Moses by those 
who think they do God service. Still, in any case, I find 
too much beauty in the books to allow me to touch them 
with irreverent hands. They are simply above all stand- 
ards of value, with which I measure other books outside the 
Scriptures, in the revelation they make to me of the way 
men felt their way toward a sure faith in God in those old 
times, and so grew, in many instances, to be very noble and 
good at last, and, as I have said, of the way in which they 
tried to account for this wonderful and mysterious universe 
in which they found themselves when they had “learned 
the use of I and me, and said ‘I am not what I see, and 
other than the things I touch.’” Nor would I lose one of 


72 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


the wonders. They all tell us something we want to know 
about the working of the human mind. 

That is a very poor and rude matter I treasure in my 
study; a broken vase of gray clay, with a few fishbone 
marks on it; but if there was not another of them in the 
world I would not exchange it for the Portland vase, for 
this reason: That on a day, so remote I can not strike it, 
some poor savage made that vase in my little town, to hold 
the dust of some one dear to him, put those marks on it for 
a token of what was in his mind, and then made a little 
vault and hid it away until the sun of this century should 
shine on it, and when I hold that vase, I find a trace of the 
man who had else been lost. There is the faint beat of a 
human heart lingering in the clay, and a dim remembrance 
of tears, and the marks, and as if they should open my grave 
two thousand years from now, and find the white cross still 
fresh on my coffin, and say, “Tender, loving hands laid 


that there, let us deal with it tenderly.” These rude and 


half-shapen things in the old books are the clue to the man 
who made them, and how he felt, and what he thought. 
I would not spare the least letter out of them, but would 
scan them in all reverence, let who will scorn them. They 
all belong to our human history, and it is only their mis- 
fortune they have ever been misused. They are included 
in the saying of the great and wise German, that the Bible 
begins nobly with Paradise, the symbol of Faith, and con- 
cludes with the eternal kingdom; and with the grand, sweet 
word of Thomas Carlyle: “In the poorest cottage there is 
one book wherein, for thousands of years, the spirit of man 
has found light and nourishment, and an interpreting 
response to whatever is deepest in him. The Book 
wherein to this day the eye that will look well, the mystery 
of existence reflects itself, and if not to the satisfying of 
the outward sense, yet to the opening of the inward sense, 
which is the far grander result.” 


Pa mee CHT Wa MMR YOR RA Ee! ine MAYS LR Ray ld ms Ae re is 3 Moe > 
Leen ees Let.) a4 wh ne whe che . P 
T : i. Trae) “ hal . 7 Ate “Ne eae | f ‘ i v 
yay Rusgl? ty Myf a Pig ee : ey oS y j i ‘ 
ae if HME Sy ol a ¢ 


DR. COLLYHR’S REPLY, 13 


A Touching Illustration—Hloquence and Truth—Havelock’s 
Saints. 


Of the doctrine advanced by Mr. Ingersoll, and his pur- 
pose to have done with the God Jesus believed in, and 
show reason why we should have done with Him, there is 
nothing to say if I have not said it steadily these many 
years. A remark of Charles Hare strikes me forcibly as [ 
read the few words that are said on this matter, in the 
address, “There is no being eloquent for atheism. In that 
exhausted receiver the mind can not use its wings—the 
clearest proof that it is out of its element.” For when I 
consider how eloquent Mr. Ingersoll has been at times, and 
the moving cause of it, I can see that he also must answer 
to this law. He never said grander words than those about 
our boys, their mighty heart, and utter self-sacrifice, for the 
noblest ends. But there never was anything done since 
the world stood, in which the presence of God could be 
traced, and his power felt more clearly, nor did ever men 
make such sacrifice with a devouter sense that God was 
within it all, than those most worthy his grand and touch- 
ing eulogium. “Call out Havelock’s saints,” Sir Archi- 
bald Campbell shouted, when hope was almost dead in the 
great Sepoy rebellion in India. Something must be done, 
and done on the swift instant, or there would be more woful 
work among the women and children. Cail out Havelock’s 
saints, they are sure to be ready, and they are never drunk. 
They were of the sort that carry a Bible -in their knapsack, 
and turn to chapter and verse, and sing psalms from old 
Rouse’s version to Dundee and Elgin, and the Martyrs, 
and nourish their hearts on stories of the way stout battles 
were fought and grand martyrdoms endured for God among 
the moors. Call out Havelock’s saints, they are always 
ready, and never get drunk, and they do fight like the very 
angels. They were but the brothers of the great, simple 


74 ' MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


souls who fought at Ball’s Bluff, and in scores of battles 
beside, while mothers and sisters did the praying for the 
moment, for they had no time except just to look up and 
hear that voice in the heart say, “ Steady, my boy, steady, 
you are of a grand stock, you must tell a grand story. 


And they told it, and at the heart of it all was God, and a 


new life for the nation, and in time a new civilization that 
shall shed its blessing on the whole waiting world. 


Atheism—Not an Institution but a “ Destitution!”»—The True Life. 


I have no stones to throw at atheism any more than I 
have stones to throw at blindness. It can never be more 
than a very sore and sad limitation, not an institution, but 
a destitution. This Anglo-Saxon nature is not good soil 
for it; no arguments can make it take hold and grow in us 
any more than arguments can make roses take hold and 
grow on Aberdeen granite. Nor have I any exhortation 
save this: That as we stand as pioneers of the noblest and 
fairest faith we can reach, a faith which throws no strands 
to stay itself on the fall, or the flood, or the manna, or the 
sun, standing still, or any of these old wonders, but just 
fronts the light and drinks it in, we shall grow ever more 
worthy to prove God’s presence in the world, by revealing 
it in our life, and in the work he has given usto do. There 
is no argument like that which lies within a sweet and true 
life which looks to God forever for its inspiration and its 
joy. Let us be right worthy of our faith. 


Then shall this Western Goth, 

So fiercely practical, so keen of eye, 

Find out some day that nothing pays but God. 
Served whether in the smoke of battle field, 

In work obscure done honestly—or vote 

For truth unpopular—or faith maintained, 

To ruinous convictions—or good deeds, 

Wrought for good’s sake, heedless of heaven or hell. 


FRED. PERRY POWERS’ REPLY. 15 


FRED. PERRY POWERS’ REPLY. 


The Sinaitic Code—Solvent Powers of the Historic Method — 
Graphic Illustration of the Two Schools. 

Crristranity, like a fortress on an open plain, is liable to 
attack from opposite directions. But it is well for the at- 
tacking parties to remember that columns of argument do 
not, like columns of soldiers, co-operate when moving in 
opposite directions. Christianity is not to be disposed of 
by proving that at the same time it is and is not a certain 
thing. : 

The “historic method,” like every new journal, seems 
“to meet a long-felt want:” It has been clutched greed- 
ily and employed in every conceivable shape. It proves not 
only that whatever is is right, but that whatever was was 
right, and whatever will be will be right. It has been car- 
ried to a point where it undermines personal responsibility, 
and with it Mr. Herbert Spencer, in the conclusion of his 
Sociology, enjoins the reformer and the philanthropist from 
activity. It eliminates ethical considerations from the 
mind-of the historian. It closes the eyes of society to the 
vices of its members, and it lays its hand upon the mouth of 
the judge before whom stands a man who, as the result of 
antecedents, and in the natural effort to harmonize himself 
with his environment, has committed murder. 

Now, it is a little singular that this invaluable historic 
method should be a legitimate weapon against the church, 
but an illegitimate weapon for the church. If the church 
is to be allowed to use this weapon freely it will have no 


76 MISTAKES OF INGHRSOLL. 


difficulty in making a perfect defense for itself, its predeces- 
sor and all of its members, no matter how wild or wicked. 
The historic method is a solvent in which the inqui- 
sition disappears, and which at once removes those spots on 
the robe of religious history, the wars and massacres of the 
Israelites. I have no disposition to make any such exten- 
sive use of the historic method as this. But all matters of 
history are to be studied as historical, not as contempora- 
neous. And it is in the last degree uncandid for the oppo- 
nents of Christianity to make the extremest use of the his- 
toric method when it suits their purpose, and then, in 
dealing with religious history, eliminate ordinary historic 
perspective. In this latter particular the enemies of the 
church are not alone. The Reformation brought in a re- 
vival of Judaism, and a large section of Protestant Chris- 
tianity resolutely closes its eyes to the fact that the Mosaic 
dispensation was given several thousand years ago, and to a 
race wholly different in its position from any now existing. 
The Mosaic dispensation is not the only thing treated in 
this way. The directions given by St. Paul to a particular 
church at a particular date are constantly appealed to in 
the churches as universal law, applicable to all churches 
and throughout all ages. If a picture with a man in the 
foreground and an elephant in the background were shown 
to two savages, one of whom knew something about ele- 
phants, and the other of whom did not, the former would 
insist upon it that the artist was a ignoramus for painting 
an elephant smaller than a man, and the other would con- 
clude that man was a larger animal than an elephant, be- 
cause he appeared so in the picture. The former repre- 
sents a school of atheists who attack the ethics of the Sina- 
itie code, and the latter represents a school of devout be- 
levers who, receiving the Sinaitic code as a matter of rev- 
elation, feel compelled to defend it as the truth and noth- 


Pg foi oy ‘fal x NS «i M7 RA ey els iy ay hit UNG to sah 4 ) 
4 \ 4 ‘ . 7 


\ . 
F< 5 ~ \ 


FRED. PERRY POWERS’ REPLY. ra 


ing but the truth, and the truth for all times and all places. 
Jt is worth while to remember ait the very outset what both 
parties to the war waged over the ethics of the Pentateuch 
seem disposed to ignore, that what are now denounced as 
the errors of the Sinaitic code were pointed out more than 
eighteen hundred years ago by the highest authority rec- 
ognized by the Christian world. 

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus Christ used the fol- 
lowing language: 

Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for 
atoeth. But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil; but whosoever 
shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other, also.— Matt. 
v., 38, 39. 

The lex talionis, here repudiated, was not a rabbinical 
interpolation; it was an integral maxim of the Sinaitic code, 
as the following words, coming shortly after the Deca- 
logue, show: 

And if any mischief follows, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for 


eye, tooth for tooth, hand for han, foot for foot, burning for burning, 
wound for wound, stripe for stripe.—Exodus xxi., 23-25, 


Free divorce was another Sinaitic error, so called, and in 
pointing it out Christ gave us the key to the whole Mosaic 
dispensation, as the following passage shows: 


The Pharisees also came unto Him, tempting Him, and saying unto 
Him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? 
And He answered and said unto them, Have ye not read that He which 
made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, for 
this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his 
wife, and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more 
twain, but one flesh. What, therefore, God hath joined together, let no 
man put asunder. They say unto Him, Why did Moses then command 
to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto 
them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put 
away your wives; but from the beginning it was notso. And I say 
unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornica- 
tion, and shall marry another, committeth adultery; and whoso marri- 
eth her which he put away doth commit adultery.— Matt. xix., 3-9. 


78 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. . 


Divine Adjustment of the Moral Law— Progressive Hlimination 
of Polygamy, Slavery, Etc.— Mount Sinai and Mount Calvary. 

The “hardness of heart” referred to is evidently the 
dullness of the intellectual and moral sense that character- 
ized the almost savage slaves of the Egyptians when they 
came up out of Egypt.- Instead of imposing on them an 
ethical system perfectly complete and perfectly unintelligi- 
ble to them in their degraded condition, Moses, under di- 
rection of divine wisdom, gave them a moral law which 
they could understand, and which would develop in them a 
capacity for something purer and higher. , 

Polygamy was tolerated, not because it was the ideal 
system; not because the deity of the Hebrews could devise 
no other, but because polygamy is the natural intermedi- 
ate station between promiscuity and monogamy. God 
chose to make a civilized people out of the Jews, not by 
His creative fiat, but by operating through natural laws of | 
sociology. In due time, when men were prepared for it, 
the law of permanent and monogamous marriage was pro- 
mulgated, but it was in advance of public sentiment, as is 
aE by the fact that when Christ, in the passage above 
quoted, forbade free divorce, and proclaimed the sanctity of 
the marital relation, the disciples suggested that if that 
was the law it was better not to marry. 

So slavery was tolerated under the Mosaic law. But ser- 
vitude for a short term of years was substituted for per- 
manent and hereditary servitude, and the law threw some 
protection about the person of the slave. The Mosaic dis- 
pensation is not responsible for a defense of slavery. It 
tolerated an intermediate state between barbarism and civ- 
ilization. 

A fact of vast importance to notice is that this Mosaic 
system contained within itself the seeds which, when 


‘ 


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eee eR . 


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; ; ’ Me Fis 2 r 
ab Ne ae ’ we 


4 


FRED. PERRY POWERS’ REPLY. 19 


humanity had outgrown the old dispensation, would mature 
into a new dispensation so far in advance of human attain- 
ments, that after nearly nineteen centuries the human race 
has not begun to catch upon it. Christ expounded the Old 
Testament references to Himself, beginning with Moses. 
When Sinai had reduced society to order, and stamped out ' 
paganism, then Calvary came and appealed to all that was 
highest and purest in man. Even at this late day there 
are not many souls that really comprehend the full meaning 
of Calvary and whose lives give evidence of that fact. 
When any considerable portion of the human race has 
received all that Calvary can confer, a new dispensation 
may be expected. 

In this sense the Mosaic dispensation was perfect and 
complete. As promulgated on Mount Sinai, it was adapted 
only to acertain low condition of mankind. But it contained 
a vital principle, which enabled it to expand as fast as 
civilization advanced. Starting with the Decalogue, it 
developed the penitential psalms and the noble exhorta- 
tions of the prophets, and finally the Beatitudes. Begin- 
ning with a catalogue of penalties, it in course of time 
developed sorrow for sin, and at last that love-to God which 
withholds from sin. This system of religion has developed 
faster than civilization has advanced. The Israelites at the 
foot of Mount Sinai probably knew something of the wrong- 
fulness of murder, theft and adultery. But, to-day, in 
spite of great moral advances—to-day, nineteen centuries 
after Christ—how much does the human race really know 
about “ hungering and thirsting after righteousness?” Let 
the foolish declaration that we have outgrown Christianity 
come from those who have been filled, and who still want 
something more. 

The Decalogue is by no means the complete moral code 
that it is often represented to be, and it would be singularly 


80 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


out of place in a Christian church were it not that, even 
to-day, and in the United States, there are many persons 
incapable of comprehending the Beatitudes which compre- 
hend all there is in the Decalogue, and vastly more. The 
seventh commandment does not apply to crimes, both 
participants in which are unmarried, and the Mosaic law 
treated. the seduction of an unbetrothed bondmaid as a 
trivial offense, sufficiently atoned for by the sacrifice of a 
ram. The seduction of a free maid, if she was not be- 
trothed, was atoned for by marriage. It was on account 
of the “hardness of their hearts,” their infancy in ethies, 
that this easy-going statute regarding the sexes was enacted. 
But Christ said : 


Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, ‘‘ Thou shalt not 
commit adultery;’’ but I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a 
woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in- 
his heart.— Matt. v., 27, 28. 


The Decalogue said, “Thou shalt not kill,” but Jesus 
Christ added to this as follows : 


Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in dan 
ger of the judgment.— Matt. v., 22. 


The Decalogue forbade the bearing of false witness; it 
was silent as to ordinary mendacity. In the New Testa- 
ment this law is extended to cover all untruthfulness. 


Purpose and Potency of the Mosaic Law. 


The purpose of the Mosaic law was to start the Israelites 
on the path of spiritual enlightenment. It was a provi- 
sional system, superseded at the right time by Christianity. 
The sacrifices were fines imposed on the guilty. They were 
also daily reminded of the existence of God, and the blood 
pouring from the altar taught the serious nature and fatal 
consequences of sin as nothing else would. Of course, to 
a set of modern sophists, who deny the existence of sin, 


FRED. PERRY POWERS’ REPLY. 81 


the sacrifices are simply meaningless, revolving spectacles; 
but the man who hasn’t studied the subject enough to 
understand the meaning of the Hebrew sacrifices is estopped 
from discussing them in public. : 

The barbarities of the Mosaic system form a pet subject 
of denunciation by gentlemen who have a repugnance to 
study, coupled with a mania for delivering lectures, when 
the latter can be done at a pecuniary profit. If a man 
thinks it just as well to worship the sun or a bull as to 
worship Jehovah, of course he will regard the penalties 
denounced against idolatry as tyrannical and barbarous. 
But no man, unless he has a purpose to accomplish thereby, 
can sliut his eyes to the barrier that idolatry places in the 
way of mental or moral progress, or both. The interests of 
the human race demanded that paganism should be roofed 
out somewhere, if not everywhere. The promise to Abra- 
ham, that in his seed should all the nations of the earth be 
blessed, has been fulfilled, but that has been accomplished 
only by the most rigorous hostility to paganism among the 
Jews. In spite of all the stern laws of Moses, Israel again 
and again relapsed into paganism; yet it was an absolute 
necessity that if what we now knowas civilization was ever 
to come, paganism must in some corner of the world be 
stamped out, and the way prepared for Christianity. To 
teach the Israelites what a moral contagion was idolatry, 
they had to be taught that it was a physical contagion, 
contaminating everything connected with the idolator. Had 
not this been done, the Israelites would have remained, 
like all the rest of the world, immersed in the unspeakably 
unclean worship of Baal and Astarte and Moloch. Cost 
what it might, the ravages of the pestilence had to be 


checked somewhere. 
6 


82 MISTAKES OF INGHRSOLL. 


Excessive Wickedness and Proportionate Punishment—The Court 
of Heaven vs. the Court of Harth. 

Of course, the wars of the Israelites and the annihilation 
of certain tribes are held to be horrible cruelties by the 
sophists of the present day. But we are distinctly told 
that it was for their extraordinary wickedness that these 
tribes were exterminated. We are again and again told 
that it was for the wickedness of the Amalekites that their 
destruction was commanded. We get some glimpses of 
the unmentionable vileness of some of these Canaanitish 


tribes. The fact was that they were ulcers on the body of - 


the human race which had to be cut out. Possibly the 
innocent suffered with the guilty, and possibly there were 
no innocent except the infants, whom it would have 
been no mercy to save after their unclean parents were 
destroyed. It is probable that the moral taint had so rooted 
itself in the physical system that, had the children been 
spared, they would have inevitably developed into adults as 
unclean as their parents. The passages sometimes quoted 
to show that Jehovah was vindicative, are passages aimed 
at sin. The most ample amnesty to the repentant is prom- 
ised from one end of Genesis to the other end of Revelation. 
The people who denounce the divine government, as mani- 
fest in the Old Testament, either deny that there is any 
such thing as sin, or, which is often the case, they have 
admirable reasons for being angry because sin is punished. 
The gentlemen who denounce the destruction of Sodom are 
necessarily apologists for the Sodomists. 

When malignancy is charged against Jehovah it is im- 
portant to remember that the presence of five righteous 
persons would have saved Sodom. There was only one 
righteous person, and not only was he enabled to escape 
but he secured immunity for his family. Nineveh was 


gee 


FRED. PERRY POWERS’ REPLY. 83 


spared because the people repented. The Israelites were 
delivered from their enemies when they forsook their sins. 
On the other hand Nathan’s rebuke to David is a matter of 
record, and Solomon’s licentiousness was punished by the 
revolt of Jeroboam and the ten tribes. The statement that 
Jehovah disregarded distinctions of right and wrong, or 
treated the innocent and guilty alike, or took pleasure in 
the death even of the wicked is false, and known to be so 
by the persons who make it. The very sentiment of hu- 
manity which prompts certain persons to denounce the di- 
vine government of the Jews is found only where Chris- 
tianity, the legitimate successor of Judaism, prevails. 
What are denounced as massacres committed by the 
Israelites were judicial executions performed under the or- 


ders of the only court in the universe which has perfect in- — 


formation of the cases tried before it, and which is per- 
fectly free from weaknesses. To object to the judgment 
one must either show that the condemned were innocent, 
which at this late day can not be shown, or one must show 
that the crimes were less heinous than the court held them 
to be, which is to become an apologist for crimes of every 
character, some of which are not even to be named. It is 
also to be remembered that the divine. government is the 
creator of society, instead of the creature of society, as is 
human government. The former is, therefore, not to be 
judged precisely as the latter is, even though abstract 
justice is the same in Heaven that itis on earth. The 
charge of vindictiveness is absolutely without foundation; 
and, by the way, of all the nations known to the Jews the 
one we might suppose them most hostile to is the Egypt- 
ian, for it was in Egypt that the Israelites were enslaved 
and maltreated. Yet the divine command, coming from 
Moses, was that the Israelites should in no case oppress 
the Egyptians, and the reason was that they were once so- 


84 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


journers in the land of Egypt, the very reason we might 
suppose why they should i especially bitter toward the 
Egyptians. 


Able Bodied Mendacity and Civilization— Love and Obedience. . 


There is a good deal of dense ignorance or able-bodied 
mendacity in circulation regarding the ethics of the New 
Testament. Jesus Christ and His apostles upheld neither 
political nor domestic despotism. But it is a fact which 
lecturers should understand that civil order is the first 
step toward civilization. Despotism is more conducive 
to civilization than anarchy is. Furthermore, when Paul 
wrote his epistles the Roman officials suspected all Chris- 
tians of being hostile to the government, and it was espe- 
cially necessary that the Roman power should understand 
by the loyalty of the Christians that He whom they called 
their king was a spiritual sovereign, and not a rival of the 
emperor. 

What Paul ata particular time wrote to a particular 
church is by no means necessarily a universal law. What 
is particularly to be noted is that the exhortations to obe- 
dience on the part of the citizen, the wife, the child and 
the servant are coupled with and conditioned on exhorta- 
tions to the ruler, the husband, the parent and the master, 
which certain uncandid and irrational persons, some of 
whom are inside the church and some of whom are outside 
of it, are careful to ignore. In Ephesians v. 22, Paul com- 
mands wives to submit themselves to their husbands, but 
in the twenty-fifth verse husbands are commanded to love 
their wives as Christ loves His church. Now, if the hus- 
band fulfills his part of the mutual obligation, the wife’s 
submission will not be of a very mental character. In 
Ephesians vi. 1, children are commanded to obey their par- 
ents, but in the fourth verse fathers are commanded not 


FRED, PERRY POWERS’ REPLY. 85 


to provoke their children to wrath, but to bring them up 
in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. In the next 
verse servants are commanded to obey their masters, but 
in the ninth verse we read, “ And, ye masters, do the same 
things unto them, forbearing threatening, knowing that 
your Master also is in Heaven; neither is there respect of 
person with Him.” In Hebrews xiii. 17, we read, “Obey 
them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves; 
for they watch for your souls as they that must give account.” 
The command to obey rules is conditioned on the dis- 
charge of their duties by the rulers. 

Now, in omitting one half of each double command, and 
on the strength of the other half arraigning Christianity 
as the ally of domestic and political tyranny, modern “ free 
thought” is accomplishing a great work, is it not? The 
distinguishing characteristic of “free thought” seems to 
be that it is thought freed from all subservience to facts. 


Mr. Powers’ Pungent Peroration. 


Theology has made many shipwrecks by an excess of @ 
priory reasoning, and by reasoning deductively when the 
means of reasoning inductively exist. But what is termed 
materialism is habitually doing the same thing, if it can 
make a point against Christianity by so doing. The ene- 
mies of Calvinism have denounced it because it promoted 
immorality. Yet a severer code of morals would be diffi- - 
cult to find than that maintained by the English Puritans, 
the Scotch Covenanters, and the French Huguenots, all Cal- 
vinists. Would it not be just as rational to judge Calvinism 
by its fruits as to judge its fruits by Calvinism? 

When man has argued from the New Testament that 
Christianity must be the ally of despotism, and then looks 
about him and sees that civil liberty is not known outside 
of Christian lands, and has its fullest development in Eng- 


96 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


land and America, where Christianity in its simplest forms 
prevail, and where there are the fewest- barriers between 
the human soul and the New Testament itself; when he 
has argued from the New Testament to show that Chris- 
tianity is inimical to the best interests of womanhood, and 
then looks around and sees womanhood honored only in 
Christian countries, constantly employed by and honored 
in the church, must it not occur to him with painful force 
that he is a good ‘deal off the track? 

It would not be necessary to remind philosophers of the 
fact, but it is necessary to remind sophists that the Jews did 
a good many things that the Mosaic dispensation is not 
responsible for, and that it is mere idiocy to hold Chris- 
tianity responsible for everything done by individuals or 
associations in its name. The man who can not discrim- 
inate between the legitimate results of a system, and the 
abuses grafted on to it by its professed adherents, is plainly 
unfit to debate philosophical questions. 

If people made half the effort to understand the Bible 
that they make to discard it, they wouldn’t be so funny as 
they are now, but they would know more. 


THERE are over two hundred passages in the Old Testa- 
ment which prophesied about Christ, and every one of them 
has come true.—D. L. Moody. 


In regard to the Great Book, I have only to say it is ‘the 
best gift which God has given toman. All the good from 
the Saviour of the World is. communicated through this 
Book. But for this Book we could not know right from 
wrong. All those things desirable to man are contained 
in it. I return you my sincere thanks for this very elegant 
copy of the Great Book of God which you present.—Abra- 
ham Lincoln, on receiving a present of a Bible. 


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ITEMS. 87 


7 DEFY you all, as many as are here, to prepare a tale so 
simple and so touching, as the tale of the passion and death 
of Jesus Christ, whose influence will be the same after so 
many centuries.— Denis Diderot. 


Tue Bible is the best book in the world. It contains 
more of my little philosophy than all the libraries I have 
seen.— John Adams. (Second President of United States.) 

Anp, finally, I may state, as the conclusion of the whole 
matter, that the Bible contains within itself all that, under 
God, is required to account for and dispose of all forms of 
infidelity, and to turn to the best and highest uses all that 
man can learn of nature.—Chancellor Dawson. 


Tue Bible is the only cement of nations, and the only 
cement that can bind religious hearts together.—Chevalier 
Bunsen. 


Tue Bible is the Word of God—with ail the peculiarities 
of man, and all the authority of God.— Prof. Murphy. 


From the time that, at my mother’s feet, or on my fa- 
ther’s knee, I first learned to lisp verses from the sacred 
writings, they have been my daily study and vigilant con- 
templation. If there be anything in my style or thoughts 
to be commended, the credit is due to my kind parents in 
instilling into my mind an early love of the Scriptures.— 
Daniel Webster. 

Tur same divine hand which lifted up before the eyes 
of Daniel and of Isaiah the veil which covered the tableau 
of the time to come, unveiled before the eyes of the author 
of Genesis the earliest ages of the creation. And Moses 
was the prophet of the past, as Daniel and Isaiah and many 
others were the prophets of the future—Prof. Guyot. 

We are persuaded that there is no book by the perusal 
of which the mind is so much strengthened and so much 


enlarged as it is by the perusal of the Bible-—Dr. Melville. 


[ Photographed by Mosher.} 


ter 
aes 
ae 
+ 


BISHOP CHENEY’S REPLY. 88 


BISHOP CHENEY’S REPLY, 


: 
How the Question of Forgery Applies to the Five Books of Moses. 


In looking at almost any object in the world of nature 
round about, it becomes remarkable only from certain points 
of view. The cathedral rocks that form one of the glories 
of the Yosemite Valley differ not much from any other great 
pile of jagged cliffs, except in a certain position, where the 
great mass of Gothic spires and arches appear clothed with 
evergreen ivy. Only as you reach a certain point where 
Profile Notch penetrates the White Mountains, do you see far 
up, up on the topmost cliff, the formation of a face cut in the 
solid granite by nature’sown chisel. But the case of alleged 
forgery before us is extraordinary from every point of view, 
for forgery is generally something which concerns some 
brief document, something that requires only a signature 
in order to secure its currency. The longer and more elab- 
orate the document which forgery produces, the more danger 
there must inevitably be of its final and ultimate detection. 
But here are five long historic books. They are full of 
details. They cover vast periods of time. Thoy enter into 
a variety of topics. Incidentally they discuss not only ques- 
tions of religion, but of law, of politics, of commerce, even 
of hygiene—medical laws of health. Was ever forgery com- 
mitted before or since on such a gigantic scale as this? 
Moreover, there is no crime that is liable to be so speedily 
detected as forgery. The man who signs some document 
with another’s name rarely goes down to the grave without 
meeting his punishment here on earth. Why, only a few 
weeks ago, the doors of our penitentiary, in the State of 


90’ MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


Illinois, closed upon a prisoner who had affixed the name of 
another, whose name was better than his own, to a check 
upon which he had received the money; but only one month 
intervened as a gap between that crime and the punishment 
it merited and received. 

It was a hundred years ago; that Thomas Chatterton, one 
of the most wonderful men, or boys, | might rather say, 
that England has ever produced, forged a huge mass of 
papers, professedly historical, that were dated away back 
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The style was 
that of the monks and chroniclers, which he had imitated 
with the greatest possible perfection. The references to 
the customs of that ancient period were such as to avoid 
detection, and Chatterton, in the precocity of his intellect, 
and in the versatility of his talent, was without a peer in 
English literary history. The English literary world re- 
ceived it as a revelation out of lost centuries. The great 
scholars of England were deceived. But it only took 
three years to expose to every eye the fraud that had been 
committed, and Chatterton, whom Wordsworth called the 
“marvelous boy,” ended his career in a suicide’s grave. O, 
brethren! who can count the years, who can enumerate the 
centuries which have rolled over this world of ours since the 
alleged forgery of this man Moses! And yet to-day, after 
the lapse of centuries, there are more people who believe in 
that forgery as the genuine work of the man whom God 
appointed the great law-giver and leader of Israel, there are 
more people who hang their hopes for time and eternity on 
this alleged fraud, and that which has grown ont of this 
alleged fraud—the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ—than 
ever before in two thousand years. Am I not then justified 
in saying that if this be a forgery, which is contained in 
the five books of Moses, it is the most extraordinary forgery 
that has ever been committed in the world since words 


BISHOP CHENEY’S REPLY. 91 


expressed human thought, or human beings learned to wield 
a pen? 


The “Common Ground” of the Contending Parties—Logical 
Position of Ezra. 


Now, in the first place, I desire to call your attention to 
certain facts concerning the Mosaic record. In all contro- 
versies in every department of human thought there are 
certain points which are regarded as neutral ground. When 
our great civil war shook this land from centre to cireum- 
ference and two mighty armies were face to face in the 
Valley of the Tennessee, the stars and stripes floated in the 
same breeze that wafted the stars and the bars ; the strains 
of “Dixie” and “My Maryland” commingled with 
“ Hail Columbia” and the “Star-Spangled Banner ;” the 
soldiers of the different armies exchanged such commodi- 
ties as they possessed, as if they had been neighbors in 
peace at home. No wonder that finally it came to pass 
that between these armies there was what is known as 
neutral ground, on which it was agreed that the soldiers of 
one side should not fire on those of the other. Now, is 
there any such ground as that between those who defend 
what are known as the five books of Moses, and those who 
declare they were never written by Moses at all? Is there 
any point, I say, in this controversy where the skeptic and 
the believer can come to stand upon one common ground ? 
If we can find such a neutral ground as that, it will save 
us a long, tiresome, profitless debate. 

Now, such a ground I think we have in the life and his- 
tory of Ezra, the writer of the book of the Old Testament, 
which bears his name. It is conceded on all hands that 
this man was a scribe of the Jewish law after the close of 
the Babylonian captivity. After .the people had returned 
from the land of their exile into the land of their fathers, 


92 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


he gathered into one great collection all these sacred writ- 
ings that were held by the Jews to be the inspired word 
of God. No infidel that I am aware of has ever questioned 
the fact that in this collection of Ezra was contained the 
five books of Moses. It has been claimed by some of the 
least scholarly of infidels that Ezra wrote those five books. 
But that idea was found visionary and was long ago given 
up by those who opposed the truth of Christianity. But 


the fact remains that no one, Christian or unbeliever, to-day — 


questions the historic fact that the five books of Moses, as 
we now accept them, were received as the writings of the 
lawgiver of the Jewish people when Ezra was at the acme 
of his influence after the Baylonian captivity. But they 
state that it was universally conceded that it was four hun- 
dred and fifty years before the birth of Christ. In other 
words, it was admitted that every Jew who returned out of 
the Babylonian captivity, held these five books to be the 
works of Moses, the man of God, twenty-three hundred 
years ago. 


The Bishop Planting Signals on the Mountain Tops of History— 
Survey of the New Moses Air Line. 

We stand, then, without dispute, without any controversy, 
at this point of time—four hundred and fifty years before 
the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Now, fix 
that point in your memory while I attempt, like a civil en- 
gineer penetrating some wilderness, to plant the signal 
on some more remote mountain top of history. Now, all 
the ancient writings, whether Egyptian or Chaldean, cor- 
roborate the testimony of the Bible that these Hebrews 
were slaves in the land of Egypt. They also agree that 
they migrated into Southern Syria, under the leadership of 
aman who was called Moses—a word which meant “ one 
drawn out of the water.” It is also universally allowed 
that they settled in this new land, which had long before 


BISHOP CHENEY'S REPLY. 93 


been promised to their fathers, about the year 1450 before 
Christ. We have established then our second date—a date 
which no skeptic has ever called in question. When our 
great tunnel that brings the pure water of Lake Michigan 
into every home and household in this city was in process 
of construction, the workmen began at either end. There 
was a shaft out in yonder crib, and there was another on 
the shore, and underneath the waves the two parties of 
-toilers worked toward each other. And so it is with us. 
We tunnel between our two shafts. The date 450 B. C. and 
the date 1450 B. C.—only one thousand years are to be ac- 
counted for. Does that seem along period of timeto you? 
I admit that it does, but not in the history of nations. It 
is only a trifle more than the time in which youand I are 
living is removed from: the time of William of Normandy, 
who conquered Harold and the English barons. 

Now we will cross the sea to the old tower that still 
recalls the memory of William the Conqueror. We will 
enter the office of public records, and in that fire-proof vault, 
guarded as they guard the specie that is gathered into the 
treasury of the nation, is'a book in two huge volumes of 
vellum. It is known as the “ Doomsday Book.” In the 
year 1086, eight hundred years ago, remember, William the 
Conqueror caused that record to be prepared. It is nearly 
as old as the five books of Moses, the Pentateuch, was in 
the days of Ezra the scribe. But not a page of the 
“Doomsday Book” has been lost; not a line has been 
altered; not a letter erased. Its pages read to-day as they 
did in this old time when the Norman heel was on the 
Saxon neck—eight centuries. ago. The ink is as fresh 
on the parchment as though that parchment were unstained 
by age. Do you ask howit is that the record has remained 
uncorrupted? Do you ask how it is that after all the revo- 
lutions that have swept over England, after all the changes 


94 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


of royal houses, and the dissolutions of powerful parties, 
that that has remained perfectly unaltered? The answer is 
a perfectly easy one to give. It is because “ Doomsday 
Book” contains the name of every man, who, in the days 
of William the Conqueror, owned one rood of English soil. 
It contains a description of the lands throughout the realm. 
It gives the boundaries of every great estate, and every old 
English family must, therefore, find the roots of its gene- 
alogy in that old book of the early times of the Norman 
conquest. It gives the title to every acre of land in Eng- 
land. Thus, two of the strongest motives that can influence 
the human mind and the human will, have conspired to 
guard this “ Doomsday Book ” with a jealous and tireless 
care. 

The possession of a great name, and the possession of 
landed property are wrapped up in England in the safety of 
that one book. Now, exactly the same motives conspired 
for the preservation, from all corruption, of the five books 
of Moses. They contain the list of those who came out of 
Egypt with Moses and entered into Palestine; they gave a 
description of the land that was apportioned to each and 
every name. ‘To lose these books, which the Jews ever 
regarded as a precious treasure, the genealogy of their 
household—to suffer them to be tampered with, was to 
unsettle the title to every man’s field from Dan to Beersheba. 

If the “ Doomsday Book” has survived, uncorrupted, 
what reason on earth is there to doubt that the Penta- 
teuch was preserved intact during the thousand years that 


intervened between the time of Moses and the time of Ezra?’ 


But I need not stop here. Ezra, as I have said, was one of 
the captives who returned out-of exile. But Daniel, long 
before the time of Ezra, speaks of this law of Moses. He 
bases his own conduct and his own private character upon 
it. Daniel brings us a hundred vears nearer to the days: 


a 
‘ 


ee eee ROR ae OA a a ee i" Wyk 4 TY wi Le ea op ane ier Mr RY Tee 
CAS on alate ryLiee AM ; : re AS aS, } Vie Oke ; 
abies, Se ies” s a) Pm at BRL? 

~ “ rs } st 


' BISHOP CHENEY'S REPLY. 95 


when Moses gave that law tothe world. When King Josiah 
mounted the throne of Judah he found that throne pol- 
luted by the wickedness that characterized the reign of his 
father, King Manasseh, and then there came an overwhelm 
ing and powerful revival of religion throughout the king- 
dom. Monarch and subject united in humiliation before 
God. Numbers of people bowed down before the Jehovah 
whom they had offended. But we all distinctly know that 
the root and the seed out of which this revival sprung was 
the finding of the copy of the five books of Moses, and 
learning there what Moses had commanded against the sin 
of idolatry. I have reached a point nearer yet to the time 
of Moses himself. I will hasten on. 


Termination of the Great Air Line. 


One thousand and four years before Christ, Solomon 
regulated the temple service and worship, but he regulated it, 
we are distinctly told, according to the law that was 
contained in the Pentateuch. And we are within four hun- 
dred and fifty years of the death of Moses. But David 
refers constantly to the five books of Moses in the psalms. 
The law of Moses was the foundation on which all the relig- 
ious character of the psalms of David rest. Before David 
was Samuel. His entire career pre-supposes the exist- 
ence of the Mosaic books. But only three hundred 
and fifty years intervened between Samuel and Moses. 
Joshua succeeded Moses as the leader of the chosen people. 
Again and again in his addresses to the people, did he 
reprove, exhort and encourage Israel, but everywhere on 
the basis of the books of the law of Moses. Thus, we have 
link by link carried back this chain of testimony to the very 
days in which Moses lived. Now we want no better proof 
than that in the secular history. Suppose the farewell 
address of George Washington had been made the object of 


96 MISTAKES OF INGHRSOLL. 


skeptical criticism; suppose that it had been denied that it 
had been written by Washington, and if I find it alluded to 
in Mr. Lincoln’s address at the monument-raising in Gettys- 
burg; if I find in one of his speeches that President Polk 
also spoke of it; if this is true of Mr. Van Buren, and Mr. 
Madison before him, and if even John Adams, the suc- 
cessor of George Washington in the presidential chair, 
refers to that address—why then, every sensible man will 
say that it is the nearest equivalent of mathematical demon- 
stration that can possibly be given of the genuineness of 
the document to which I have referred. 


Genealogical Reflections. 


Now, I want you to notice again that if these writings | 


were forged, they were forged by men, who even in so 
doing, blackened the character of their own lineage and an- 
cestry. It has been well said that a man whose chief glory 
is in his ancestors, is very like a potato—the best part of 
himis under ground. But after all there is no good man 
who does not rejoice—and thank God for the fact—when 
he is able to trace back a long line of God-fearing, pure- 
living, honest men and women as the seed from whence he 
sprang. If I go to work and forge a genealogy for my- 
self, I certainly will not manufacture one that describes 
my forefathers as the blackest set of criminals that ever 
escaped from a penitentiary. No one pretends for a mo- 
ment that any one but the Jews were those who could 
have been responsible for the Testament records ; but it 
they forged it they must have had some motive. Forgers 
always have a motive. There is something before their 
minds that is to be gained. But what did these forgers 
do? Why they compiled a record of their own family tree, 
that overwhelmed their fathers with everlasting shame and 
contempt. They described the ancient Hebrews as besotted 


WA Me aenyT Oe ath BN ete Aa oe ae 
a iety a¥ Popes Byers pe te As ab i ta: 
A) Py a ay AAG y K t \ 


a . 


~ 


BISHOP CHENEY'S REPLY. 97 


idolaters in the land of Egypt. When God promised them 
a land, all their own, flowing with milk and honey—when 
all that was set before them—they were willing to give up 
all hope of prosperity, all hope of deliverance from slavery, 
if they might only have that which they sighed for—the 
fish and the leeks and garlic of Egypt. They are repre- 


sented as bowing down to the worship of a calf, which 


their own hands had made out of their golden ear-rings, 
and doing that in the very presence of God, displayed 
upon Mount Sinai, and are described when they reached 
the borders of the promised land, when all its glory was 
before them, and its liberty was almost theirs, as being 
too cowardly to fight the battles that were necessary to 


gain the possession of their inheritance, till at last God 
refused to let one of the miserable, cowardly generation 


enter the land He had promised to their fathers. Yet 
all this is forgery, not of the Assyrians, not of the 
Egyptians, who were their hereditary enemies ; not of the 
Philistines, but themselves—the forgery of the Jews them- 
selves. As thoughin the dead of night 4 man should steal 
out under cover of the darkness to the tombstone of his 
dead father, and with chisel and mallet in hand try to erase 
the honorable record of his life, and forge a lying epitaph 
that made him the vilest scoundrel that ever polluted the 
earth. Nay,if I commit a forgery on my family record, if 
ever I try to impose a fabulous family tree on those who 
know me, I don’t think I shall ever trace my line to Cesar 
Borgia. 
Cutting the Gordian Knot. 

Now again I would like to notice very briefly some of 
the objections to the credibility of the Mosaic writers. 
Now, there is nothing easier than to start difficulties 
on any subject which the human mind can give atten- 
tion to. Let a child in its tiny fingers grasp a pin and 

7 


98 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


get at the silvered side of a mirror, and in five minutes it 
will do more damage than the most skillful laborer can 
remedy with the work of many hours. 

Ts it wonderful that the Bible has been made the subject 
of repeated attacks? I no more hope to answer all the 
objections that can be put against a book such as the book 
in question, or even the books of Moses—I say I can no 
more hope to answer all these attacks than in this spring- 
time I can hope to pick off every green leaf that starts out 
upon every spreading tree. It were an easier and more 
effective way to girdle the tree itself. God girdles the tree 
of infidelity by revival. 

If the record of experience tells any fact in the world, 
it is this, that a thousand objections which tle head can 
see, vanish into thin air when the spirit of God gets 
hold of a man’s heart. Why, there are men here to-night 
who remember the hour when they found difficulties 
upon every page of the word of God, when they objected 
to every principle it propounded, and now look back to the 
difficulties they used to find there, and wonder how it was 
possible that they could ever have been troubled by difficul- 
ties so palpably absurd. They did not study out one by 
one the replies that might have been made to these objec- 
tions. When, in June, huge swarms of flies make our city - 
like the land of Egypt in the days of old, we never under- 
take to kill them one by one; half a million of people 
would not be sufficient for that. But God’s west wind 
blows, and they are scattered. So it is that the winds of 
God’s spirit sweep away the swarms of difficulties that men 
find in the Bible. And yet I am prepared to-night to take 
up two or three of the objections which have been urged 
against the credibility of the Pertateuch. These objections 
resolve themselves into two different parts—the one to the 
facts of the history of Moses, the other to the morality of 


BISHOP CHENEHY’S REPLY. 99 


the acts that are there recorded, or the precepts that are 
there laid down. I won’t have time to go over both 
branches of the subject. The limits of such a sermon as 
this absolutely forbid it. I speak now of the facts. At 
some future time I hopeto take up the moral portion of it. 

Now, every time you visit the South Park, you find a 
place of rest under the grateful shade of an ancient willow. 
The vast expanse of its gigantic branches, the immense 
girth of its trunk are the witnesses of its venerable age. 
If I should take up to-morrow the report of the park com- 
missioners and find there the statement that they, at vast 
expense, had transplanted that willow tree from the native 
soil in which it grew to adorn Chicago’s pleasure-ground, 
I should know beforehand that it was false; the very appear- 


ance of the tree gives the lie to the statement, and.if there 


were any way in which I could examine the rings that 
made up the trunk, [ need only count them to have a posi- 
tive proof of the fact that the statement contained in the 
report was false. 

Now, precisely akin to that is the accusation that is often 
brought against the Book of Genesis. It is said that Moses 
declares that six thousand years ago God created this world 


in which we are living now. But we only need to count 


the geologic strata—we only need to number the rings of 
the huge trunk of this earth in order to disprove the 
statement. 


The Bishop’s Challenge—Moses and Ingersoll as Chronologists. 


Now, in reply to this difficulty, which is so often urged 
against the Book of Genesis, | want to say one word, and 
that is, I challenge any man in this congregation—I chal- 
lenge any man in the wide world that has ever read the 
Bible, to find in any book of the Bible, much less in the 
Book of Genesis, the statement that the creation of this 


100 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


earth took place six thousand years ago. This Moses, 
whom Ool. Ingersoll thinks was such a blunderer; whose 
mistakes have been the subject of his jeers and blasphem- 
ous ridicule, was a more careful man than our Peoria skep- 
tic thinks. He certainly was careful not to fix the time at 
which God created this earth. Whether that creation took 
place six thousand or six million years ago, he does not 
state. He does say that “In the beginning God created 
the heavens and the earth.” But that is all. All that he 
asserts is, that matter—the substance out of which the 
earth was made—is not eternal; it had a beginning; He 
did create it. 

Well, then, again, the creation of man, equally with that 
of the world, is made the object of attack. We are told 
that the Bible claims that between five and six thousand 
years ago God placed the first pair of the human family in 
Eden. But when geologists have dug down into the forma- 
tions that make up this globe—formations which upon 
mathematical calculation have taken ages and ages to pro- 
duce — they find there the remains of ancient tools, weap- 
ons, ornaments and utensils that prove that man must have 
lived in a time far ante-distant to that of Adam. 

For example, the skeleton of an Indian was exhumed 
some years ago, while digging for the foundation of the 
gas-works in the City of New Orleans, and it was alleged 
by one geologist of that day that it could not have been 
less than fifty thousand years ago that that man lived. It 
has been flaunted in our faces that science and religion are 
opposed to each other; that the Bible is against progress, 
and that we all must concede that the Pentateuch is but a 
tissue of falsehood. 

Now the first answer I have to give is, that there is not 
one syllable in the Bible that fixes the length of time or 
man’s existence upon this earth. Notone syllable. Moses 


ee we eae 
ne pa 


a4, 


opi ax i? 


BISHOP CHENEY’S REPLY. 101 


does not tell us anything about the date that God created 
Adam and put him in the garden of Eden. True, we have 
in the New Testament, in the genealogy of Christ, a state- 
ment of the number of generations from Abraham down 
to the Saviour; but who knows precisely what is the mean- 
ing of the term “ generations?” The word is used in a variety 
of senses in the Bible, and it baffles all calculation to deter- 
mine how many ages intervened between Adam and Abra- 
ham. ‘The wisest scholars have been perplexed to fix the 
number of centuries that rolled over the world in that 
period of time. To say that God placed man upon this 
earth six thousand years ago, is not quoting the Bible. I 
want you to remember that. I want you to tell it to the 
skeptic that picks out genealogical difficulties in the Scrip- 
ture. It is only repeating the result of calculations in 
chronology of certain fallible men who, as fallible, were 
liable to be mistaken. All infidels do it in trying to fasten 
upon the Scripture the blunders of mistaken men. But, 
as is well known, the.tendency of the best geologists in 
our day is rapidly going away from the old* ideas of the 
vast periods of time in the construction of this earth. 


Mud Calendars vs. Fiacts—Some Sad and Sorrowful Scientific 
- Figuring in the Sand. 


It was not very long ago that Sir Charles Lyell, the distin- 
guished English geologist, calculated from his own stand- 
point the rate at which the mud is deposited in the great 
delta of the Mississippi. By actual figures he reached the 
astounding calculation that the formation of the delta of 
the Mississippi must have -occupied not less than one 
hundred thousand years. And, when down underneath 
that deposit a skeleton was exhumed, it proved beyond all 
question that not less than fifty thousand years ago human 
feet had trod the soft soil of the delta of the Mississippi. 


102 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


But unfortunately for Sir Charles Lyell, American geolo- 
gists were on his track, and the United States coast survey 
followed in the pathway where he had been investigating. 
Gen. Humphrey, of the American army, measured accu- 
rately the amount of the deposit. He reviewed the figures 
of the English geologist, and he showed unanswerably that 
the whole delta of the Mississippi could not have been in 
process of formation longer than four thousand four hundred 
years. For many years geologists held that a quantity of 
pottery that was found some sixty feet below the surface of 
the soil, in the delta of the Nile, was at least twelve thousand 
years old. But later investigations deeper down in the same 
soilcame upon some more patterns, which were undoubtedly 
of Roman origin, and under these, a brick that bore inefface- 
ably the stamp of Mehemet Ali, a modern pasha. 

If you have visited Minneapolis, you certainly must have 
been struck by the formation of the banks where the Mis- 


sissippi has cut its way through the rocks. Above there is 


layer upon layer, stratum upon stratum of limestone, and 
beneath them the saccharoid sandstone, white as the sugar 
from which it derives its name, and soft enough to be cut 
with a knife, lies in huge masses. On the bluff overlooking 
the river, there lives, in an immense house, which many 
years ago was a popular hotel of the ancient city of St. 
Anthony’s Falls, a friend of mine. One day there came to 
him startling news. Just outside of his premises, in exca- 
vating for the foundation of a new building, the workmen 
had struck upon a wooden coffin, and in it they found what 
was recognized to be, beyond all doubt, human bones. A 
local geologist, a physician of the state, with some skeptical 
tendencies, seized upon this new foundation of the an- 
tiquity of man, and the next day the columns of an even- 
ing paper of St. Paul contained an article from this gen- 
tleman’s pen about what countless ages must have elapsed 


pelt’, ERS Ses NS So a ate ay SO 2 HAN 
n tei pase Si ft ato ‘ . \ ~ 
a : r 


BISHOP CHENEY’S REPLY. 103 


to perfect that saccharoid sandstone over the coffin, and 
over that to have put these layers upon layers of rock. 

The conclusion was, that the chronology of the Bible 
was utterly a mistake, and that we had, before the days ot 
Mr. Ingersoll, one of the mistakes of Moses. On reading 
the article my friend felt at once it was his duty to investi- 
gate the event. He found the coffin still unremoved, for 
it was solidly wedged into the saccharoid sandstone, and 
small pieces of the bones were scattered carelessly about. 
My friend, whose Christian feeling is only equaled by his 
profound ability and scholarship, began carefully to examine 
these relics of pre-Adamite man. Imagine his surprise to 
find that the coffin which had been made so many ages be- 
fore Adam was placed upon this earth, was the plank sewer 
of the old hotel in which he lived, and the bones were those 
of some innocent lamb, that a careless cook had some time 
ago flung into that receptacle. I honor geology, but I claim 
it is yet a very imperfect science, and even with all its im- 
perfections I have yet to find a solitary principle or fact 
that geology has laid down that contradicts+one word of 
the five books of Moses. 


A Mistake of Ingersoll, Tom Paine & Co. Corrected—Conclusion. 


I allude to one more of the Mosaic facts that is assailed 
by the opponents of the Gospel. It is a difficulty which 
Mr. Ingersoll recently brought forward in that remarkable 
production of his, as something which he had discovered; 
but Bishop Colenso, whom the Church of England some 
thirty years ago sent out among the Zulus, dwelt upon it 
long ago, and even before his time, Tom Paine had made 
it his weapon against the truthfulness of the Pentateuch. 
It is simply this: We are told that the children of Israel, 
according to the Bible, were in the land of Egypt, in cap- 
tivity, two hundred and fifteen years. There went down 


« 


104 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


with Jacob and his sons, their wives and children, seventy 
souls in all. But the Exodus finds in the army of Israel 
six hundred thousand fighting men, invelving a total of 
men, women and children which could not have been less 
than two or three millions, and it is declared that such an 


increase is utterly unparalleled in the annals of history. - 
Our mathematicians have figured it all out to their satis-. 


faction. Now, I want you to observe what a tissue of 
blunders make up this opposition to this Great Book. First 
of all turn back to the life of Abraham, the ancestor of 
Jacob, and you there discover that a Hebrew family did 
not consist merely of the parents and children. The ser- 
vants were a part of the Hebrew household, and God dis- 
tinctly made His commands imperative and unavoidable 
upon Abraham, that every male youth born in his house 
should receive the seal of circumcision. He therefore 
became a participator in the Abrahamic covenant. Nay, 
more, if he bought a servant he had to be brought into the 
covenant of circumcision. God insists upon this, and thus 
‘every servant of every Hebrew household became a He- 
brew, and was reckoned in the family into which he was 
adopted. Away back in the time of Abraham, if you take 
up the Book of Genesis you will find he had so many of 
these servants born in his own household, that three hundred 
and eighteen of them, able-bodied men, soldiers, followed 
him to battle, and when Jacob, in the one hundred and 
thirtieth year of his age, went down into the land of Egypt 
the three hundred and eighteen of Abraham’s day surely 
must have multiplied into thousands. 

The Pentateuch, it is true, gives only the formal list of 
Jacob’s sons, their wives and their children. There is no 
formal mention of this vast crowd of attendants, who, not- 
withstanding as part of the family, must have entered into 
the land of Egypt with them. Thus, at the very rate of 


‘vial 


a 
BISHOP CHENEY'S REPLY. 105 


increase that the tables of the census of the United States 
to-day display, these thousands might have easily amounted 
to three millions in two hundred and fifteen years. 

I am not through with this stronghold of tho enemies of 
the Pentateuch. As I study it seems to me that I never 
knew a ghost to vanish into thinner air. I would like to 
know where or how the critics learned that Israel was in 
bondage in the land of Egypt two hundred and fifteen years. 
Why, they learned in precisely the way that they learned 
that Moses said this earth was made just six thousand years 
ago. They have taken up certain genealogies and specula- 
tions of commentators. They have taken up the calcula- 
tions of Hales and others, and they have regarded them as 
infallible. ‘They have never turned to the twelfth chapter 
of Exodus, and I find there the statement given with pre- 
cision that admits of no question that the sojourn of the 
children of Israel in Egypt was four hundred and _ thirty 
years: ‘“ And it came to pass, at the end of four hundred 
and thirty years, within the self-same day it came to pass 
that all the hosts of the Lord came out of the land of 
Keypt.” Long before that, God had told Abraham that his 
seed should be strangers in a land that was not theirs, and 
that they should afflict them four hundred years. And the 
Jews so understood it, as shown by the fact that in the New 
Testament Stephen declares that God told the father of the 
faithful that his seed should sojourn in a strange land, and 
they should bring them into bondage and evil entreat them 
four hundred years. Now, if but seventy had gone down 
with Jacob into Egypt, an increase to two or three or even 
four millions in four and a half centuries would have been 
no more than what is paralleled by the history of every 
race on the surface of the globe. 

In Italy, three hundred years ago, when men were wild 
over the discovery of Galileo’s telescope, there was one 
philosopher who refused to look through the tube that 
pierced the vail of the starry worlds, and when he was asked 
the reason, “I am afraid,” he said, “that I should believe . 
Galileo’s theory of the planetary motion.” My brethren, 
look into the telescope of revelation. To know it, to study 
it, is to find the very truth of God. 


DNGERSOLI’S | ECTURE 


ON 


oC A Be: 


AND HIS 


REPLIES TO PROF, SWING, DR. RYDER, DR. HERFORD, 
DR. COLLYER, AND OTHER CRITICS. 


REPRINTED FROM “THE CHICAGO TIMES.” 


LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: Man advances just in the proportion that 
he mingles his thoughts with his labor —just in the proportion that he 
takes advantage of the forces of nature; just in proportion as he loses 
superstition and gains confidence in himself. Man advances as he 
ceases to fear the gods and learns to love his fellow-men. It is all, in 
my judgment, a question of intellectual development. Tell me the 
religion of any man and I will tell you the degree he marks on the 
intellectual thermometer of the world. It is a simple question of brain. 
Those among us who are the nearest barbarism have a barbarian religion. 
Those who are nearest civilization have the least superstition. It is, I 
say, a simple question of brain, and I want, in the first place, to ane the 
foundation to prove that assertion. 

A little while ago I saw models of nearly everything that man has 
made. I saw models of all the water craft, from the rude dug-out in 
which floated a naked savage — one of our ancestors — a naked savage, 
with teeth twice as long as his forehead was high, with a spoonful of 
brains in the back of his orthodox head —I saw models of all the water 
craft of the world, from that dug-out up to a man-of-war that carries a 
hundred guns and miles of canvas; from that dug-out to the steamship 

107 


108 “MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


that turns its brave prow from the port of New York, with a compass 
like a conscience, crossing three thousand miles of billows without migs- 
ing a throb or beat of its mighty iron heart from shore to shore. And I 
saw at the same time the paintings of the world, from the rude daub of 
yellow mud to the landscapes that enrich palaces and adorn houses of 
what were once called the common people. I saw also their sculpture, 
from the rude god with four legs, a half dozen arms, several noses, and 
two or three rows of ears, and one little, contemptible, brainless head, 
up to the figures of to-day,—to the marbles that genius has clad in such 
a personality that it seems almost impudent to touch them without an 
introduction. I saw their books—books written upon the skins of wild 
beasts—upon shoulder-blades of sheep—books written upon leaves, upon 
bark, up to the splendid volumes that enrich the libraries of our day. 
When I speak of libraries I think of the remark of Plato: “A house that 
has a library in it has a soul.” 
I saw at the same time the offensive weapons that man has made, from 
a club, such as was grasped by that same savage when he crawled from 
his den in the ground and hunted a snake for his dinner: from that club 
to the boomerang, to the sword, to the cross-bow, to the blunderbuss, to 
the flint-lock, to the cap-lock, to the needle-gun, up to a cannon cast by 
Krupp, capable of hurling a ball weighing two thousand pounds through 
eighteen inches of solid steel. I saw, too, the armor from the shell of a 
turtle that one of our brave ancestors lashed upon his breast when he 
went to fight for his country; the skin of a porcupine, dried with the 
quills on, which this same savage pulled over his orthodox head, up to 
the shirts of mail that were worn in the middle ages, that laughed at the 
edge of the sword and defied the point of the spear; up to a monitor 
clad in complete steel. And I say orthodox not only in the matter of 
religion, but in everything. Whoever has quit growing he is orthodox, 
whether in art, polities, religion, philosophy—no matter what. Whoever 
thinks he has found it all out he is orthodox. Orthodoxy is that which 
rots, and heresy is that which grows forever. Orthodoxy is the night 
of the past, full of*the darkness of superstition, and heresy is the eternal » 
coming day, the light of which strikes the grand foreheads of the intel- 
lectual pioneers of the world. I saw their implements of agriculture, 
from the plow made of a crooked stick, atttached to the horn of an ox 
by some twisted straw, with which our ancestors scraped the earth, and 
from that to the agricultural implements of this generation, that make 
it possible for a man to cultivate the soil without being an ignoramus. 
In the old time there was but one crop; and when the rain did net 
come in answer to the prayer of hypocrites a famine came and people 
fell upon their knees. At that time they were full of superstition. They 
were frightened all the time for fear that some god would be enraged at 


pei ty Gee te aie Sake NR AIR RE ARE UO OR UCU i 
SKULLS AND REPLIES. 109 


his poor, hapless, feeble and starving children. But now, instead of 
depending upon one crop they have several, and if there is not rain 
enough for one there may be enough for another. And if the frosts kill 
all, we have railroads and steamships enough to bring what we need 
from some other part of the world. Since man has found out some- 
thing about agriculture, the gods have retired from the business of pro- 
ducing famines. 

I saw at the same time their musical instruments, from the tom-tom 
—that is, a hoop with a couple of strings of raw-hide drawn across it— 
from that toni-tom, up to the instruments we have to-day, that make 
the common air blossom with melody, and I said to myself there is a 
regular advancement. I saw at the same time a row of human skulls, 
from the lowest skull that has been found, the Neanderthal skull— 
skulls from Central Africa, skulls from the bushmen of Australia— 
skulls from the farthest isles of the Pacific Sea—up to the best skulls of 
the last generation—and I noticed that there was the same difference 
between those skulls that there was between the products of those skulls, 
and I said to my-elf: “After all, it is asimple question of intellectual 
development.’’ There was the same difference between those skulls, the 
lowest and highest skulls, that there was between the dug-out and the 
man-of-war and the steamship, between the club and the Krupp gun, 
between the yellow daub and the landscape, between the tom-tom and 
an opera by Verdi. The first and lowest skull in this row was the den 
in which crawled the base and meaner instincts of mankind, and the 
last was a temple in which Gwelt joy, liberty and love. And I said to 
myself, it is all a question of intellectual development. 

Man has advanced just as he has mingled his thought with his labor. 
As he has grown he has taken advantage of the forces of nature; first of 
the moving wind, then of falling water, and finally of steam. From 
one step to another he has obtained better houses, better clothes, and 
better books, and he has done it by holding out every incentive to the 
ingenious to produce them. The world has said, give us better clubs 
and guns and cannons with which to kill our fellow Christians. And 
whoever will give us better weapons and better music, and better houses 
to live in, we will robe him in wealth, crown him in honor, and render 
his name deathless. Every incentive was held out to every human being 
to improve these things, and that is the reason we have advanced in all 
mechanical arts. But that gentleman in the dug-out not only had his 
ideas about politics, mechanics, and agriculture; he had his ideas also 
about religion. His idea about politics was “right makes might.” It 
will be thousands of years, may be, before mankind will believe in the 
saying that “right makes might.” He had his religion. That low 
skull was adevil factory. He believed in Hell, and the belief was acon- 


110 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


solation tohim. He could see the waves of God’s wrath dashing against: 
the rocks of dark damnation. He could see tossing in the white-caps. 
the faces of women, and stretching above the crests the dimpled hands 
of children; and he regarded these things as the justice and mercy of 
God. And all to-day who believe in this eternal punishment are the 
barbarians of the nineteenth century. That man believed in a devil, 
too, that had a long tail terminating with a fiery dart; that had wings. 
like a bat—a devil that had a cheerful habit of breathing brimstone, 
that had a cloven foot, such as some orthodox clergymen seem to think 
Ihave. And there has not been a patentable improvement made upon 
that devil in all the years since. The moment you drive the devil out. 
of theology, there. is nothing left worth speaking of. The moment they 
drop the devil, away goes atonement. The moment they kill the devil, 
their whole scheme of salvation has lost all of its interest for mankind. 
. You must keep the devil and you must keep Hell. You must keep the 
devil, because with no devil no priest is necessary. Now, all I ask is 
this—the same privilege to improve upon his religion as upon his dug- 
out, and that is what I am going to do, the best I can. No matter what 
church you belong to, or what church belongs to us. Let us be honor 
bright and fair. 

I want toask you: Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest. 
if there was one at that time, had told these gentlemen in the dug-out: 
“That dug-out is the best boat thatcan ever be built by man; the pattern 
of that came from on high, from the great God of storm and flood, and 


any man who says he can improve it by putting a stick in the middle 


of it and a rag on the stick, is an infidel, and shall be burned at the 
stake ;?’? what, in your judgment—honor bright—would have been the 
effect upon the circumnavigation of the globe? Suppose the king, if 
there was one, and the priest, if there was one—and I presume there 
was a priest, because it was a very ignorant age—suppose this king and 


priest had said: “The tom-tom is the most beautiful instrument of 


music of which any man can conceive; that is the’kind of music they 
have in Heaven; an angel sitting upon the edge of a glorified cloud, 
golden in the setting sun, playing upon that tom-tom, became so enrap- 
tured so entranced with her own music, that in a kind of ecstasy she 
dropped it—that is how we obtained it; and any man who says it can be 
improved by putting a back and front to it, and four strings, and a bridge, 
and getting a bow of hair with rosin, is a blaspheming wretch, and shall 
die the death,”—I ask you, what effect would that have had upon music ? 
If that course had been pursued, would the human ears, in your judg- 
ment, ever have been enriched with the divine symphonies of Beethoven > 
Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, had said: “ That 
crooked sticks is the best plow that can be invented; the pattern of that. 


SKULLS AND REPLIES. 111 


plow was given to a pious farmer in an exceedingly holy dream, and 
that twisted straw is the ne plus ultra of all twisted things, and any man 
who says he can make an improvement upon that plow, is an atheist;” 
what, in your judgment, would have been the effect upon the science of 
agriculture? i 

Now, all I ask is the same privilege to improve upon his religion as 
upon his mechanical arts. Why don’t we go back to that period to get 
the telegraph? Because they were barbarians. And shall we go to bar- 
barians to get our religion? What is religion? Religion simply 
embraces the duty of man to man. Religion is simply the science of 
human duty and the duty of man to man—that is what it is. Itis the 
highest science of all. And all other sciences are as nothing, except as 
they contribute to the happiness of man. The science of religion isthe 
highest of all, embracing all others. And shall we go to the barbarians 
to learn the science of sciences? The nineteenth century knows more 
about religion than all the centuries dead. There is more real charity 
in the world to-day than ever before. There is more thought to-day than 
ever before. Woman is glorified to-day as she never was before in the 
history of the world. There are more happy families now than ever 
before—more children treated as though they were tender blossoms than 
as though they were brutes than in any other time or nation. Religion 
is simply the duty a man owes to man; and when you fall upon your 
knees and pray for something you know not of, you neither benefit the 
one you pray for nor yourself. One ounce of restitution is worth a mil- 
lion of repentances anywhere, and a man will get along faster by help- 
ing himself a minute than by praying ten years for somebody to help 
him. Suppose you were coming along the street, and found a party of 
men and women on their knees praying to a bank, and you asked them, 
“ Have any of you borrowed any money of this bank?” “ No, but our 
fathers, tey, to, prayed to this bank.” “ Did they evergetany?’ ‘ No, 
not that we ever heard of.’ I would tell them to get up. It is easier to 
earn it, and it is far more manly: 

Our fathers in the “ good old times,”’—and the best that I can say of 
the “ good old times” is that they are gone, and the best I can say of the 
good old people that lived in them is that they are gone, too—believed 
that you made a man think your way by force. Well, you can’t do it. 
There is a splendid something in man that says: “I won’t; I won’t 
be driven.” But our fathers thought men could be driven. They tried 
it in the “ good old times.” I used to read about the manner in which 
the early Christians made converts—how they impressed upon the world 
the idea that God loved them. [I have read it, but it didn’t burn into my 
soul. I didn’t think much about it—I heard so much about being fried 
forever in Hell that it didn’t seem so bad to burn a few minutes. I love 


a WE FR Ne ek A oon he, 
e * re. Ny, 
if iN - "4 y 4 Y 7 
eo 
a . b y F. Ng 
a {the 
112 MISTAWNEHS OF INGERSOLL. 


liberty and I hate all persecutions in the name of God. I never appre- 
ciated the infamies that have been committed in the name of religion 
until I saw the iron arguments that Christians used. I saw, for instance, 
the thumb-screw, two little innocent looking pieces of iron, armed with 
some little protuberances on the inner side to keep it from slipping 
down, and through each end a screw, and when some man had made 
some trifling remark, as, for instance, that he never believed that God 
made a fish swallow aman to keep him from drowning, or something 
like that, or, for instance, that he didn’t believe in baptism. You know 
that is very wrong. You can sce for yourselves the justice of damning 
aman if his parents had happened to baptize him in the wrong way— 
God can not afford to break arule or two to save all the men in the 
world. I happened to be in the company of some Baptist ministers 
once—you may wonder how I happened to be in such company as that— 
and one of them asked me what I thought about baptism. Well, I told 
them I hadn’t thought much about it—that I had never sat up nights 
on that question. I said: “ Baptism—with soap—is a good institution.” 
Now, when some man had said some trifling thing like that, they put 
this thumb-screw on him, and in the name of universal benevolence and 
for the love of God—man has never persecuted man for the love of man; 
man has never persecuted another for the love of charity—it is always 
for the love of something he calls God, and every man’s idea of God is 
his own idea. If there is an infinite God, and there may be—I don’t 
know—there may be a million for all I know—I hope there is more 
than one—one seems so lonesome. They kept turning this down, and 
when this was done, most men would say: “‘ I will recant.” I think I 
would. There is not much of the martyr aboutme. I would have told 
them: ‘Now you write it down, and I will sign it. You may have 
one God or a million, one Hell or a million. You stop that—I am 
tried.” 

Do you know, sometimes I have thought that all the hypocrites in the 
world are not worth one drop of honest blood. I am sorry that any 
good man ever died for religion. I would rather let them advance a 
little easier. It is too bad to see a good man sacrificed for a lot of wild 
beasts and cattle. But there is now and then a man who would not 
swerve the breadth of a hair. ‘There was now and then a sublime heart 
willing to die.for an intellectual conviction, and had it not been for these 
men we would have been wild beasts and savages to-day. There were 
some men who would not take it back, and had it not. been for a few 
such brave, heroic souls in every age we would have been cannibals, 
with pictures of wild beasts tattooed upon our breasts, dancing around 
some dried-snake fetish. And so they turned it down to the iast thread 
of agony, and threw the victim into some dungeon, where, in the throb.’ 


SKULLS AND REPLIES. | 113 


bing silence and darkness, he might suffer the agonies of the fabled 
damned. This was done in the name of love, in the name of mercy, in 
the name of the compassionate Christ. And the men that did it are the 
men that made our Bible for us. 

I saw, too, at the same time, the collar of torture. Imagine a circle of 
iron, and on the inside a hundred points almost as sharp as needles. 
This argument was fastened about the throat of the sufferer. Then he 
could not walk nor sit down, nor stir without the neck being punctured 
by these points. In a little while the throat would begin to swell, and 
suffocation would end the agonies of that man. This man, it may be, 
had committed the crime of saying, with tears upon his cheeks, “I do 
not believe that God, the father of us all, will damn to eternal perdition 
any of the children of men.” And that was done to convince the world 
that God so loved the world that He died for us. That was in order 
that people might hear the glad tidings of great joy to all people. 

I saw another instrument, called the scavenger’s daughter. Imagine 
a pair of shears with handles, not only where they now are, but at the 
points as well and just above the pivot that unites the blades a circle of 
iron. In the upper handles the hands would be placed; in the lower, 
the feet; and through the iron ring, at the centre, the head of the victim 
would be forced, and in that position the man would be thrown upon 
the earth, and the strain upon the muscle would produce such agony 
that insanity took pity. And this was done to keep people from going 
to Hell—to convince that man that he had made a mistake in his logic— 
and it was done, too, by Protestants—Protestants that persecuted to the 
extent of their power, and that is as much as Catholicism ever did. 
They would persecute now if they had the power. There is not a man 
in this vast audience who will say that the church should have temporal 
power. There is not one of you but what believes in the eternal divorce 
of church and state. Is it possible that the only people who are fit to 
go to heaven are the only people not fit to rule mankind? 

I saw at the same time the rack. This was a box like the bed of a 
wagon, with a windlass at each end, and ratchets to prevent slipping. | 
Over each windlass went chains, and when some man had, for instance, — 
denied the doctrine of the trinity, a doctrine it is necessary to believe in 
order to get to Heaven — but, thank the Lord, you don’t have to under- 
stand it. This man merely denied that three times one was one, or 
maybe he denied that there was ever any Son in the world exactly as 
ld as his father, or that there ever was a boy eternally older than his 
mother—then they put that man on the rack. Nobody had ever been 
persecuted for calling God bad—it has always been for calling him good. 
When I stand here to say that, if there is a Hell, God is a fiend; they 
say that is very bad. They say I am trying to tear down the institu- 


114 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. — 


tions of public virtue. But let me tell you one thing; there is no refor- 
mation in fear — you can scare a man so that he won’t do it sometimes, 
but I will swear you can’t scare him. so bad that he won’t want to do it. 
Then they put this man on the rack and priests began turning these 
levers, and kept turning until the ankles, the hips, the shoulders, the 
elbows, the wrists, and all the joints of the victim were dislocated, and 
he was wet with agony, and standing by was a physician to feel his 
pulse. Whatfor? To save his life? Yes. In mercy? No. But in 
order that they might have the pleasure of racking him once more. 
And this was the Christian spirit. This was done in the name of civili- 
zation, in the name of religion, and all these wretches who did it died in 
peace. There is not an orthodox preacher in the city that has not a 
respect for every one of them. As, for instance, for John Calvin, who 
was a murderer and nothing but a murderer, who would have disgraced 
an ordinary gallows by being hanged upon it. These men when they 
came to die were not frightened. God did not send any devils into 
their death-rooms to make mouths at them. He reserved them: for 
Voltaire, who brought religious liberty to France. He reserved them 
for Thomas Paine, who did more for liberty than all the churches. But 
all the inquisitors died with the white hands of peace folded over the 
breast of piety. And when they died, the room was filled with the rustle 
of the wings of angels, waiting to bear the wretches to Heaven. 

When I read these frightful books it seems to me sometimes as though 
I had suffered all these things myself. It seems sometimes as though I 
had stood upon the shore of exile, and gazed with tearful eyes toward 
home and native land; it seems to me as though I had been staked out 
upon the sands of the sea, and drowned by the inexorable, advancing 
tide; as though my nails had been torn from my hands, and into the 
bleeding quick needles had been thrust; as though my feet had been 
crushed in iron boots; as though I had been chained in the cell of the 
Inquisition, and listened with dying ears for the coming footsteps of 
release; as though I had stood upon the scaffold and saw the glittering 
axe fall upon me; as though I had been upon the rack and had seen, 
bending above me, the white faces of hypocrite priests; as though I 
had been taken from my fireside, from my wife and children, taken to 
the public square, chained; as though fagots had been piled about me; 
as though the flames had climbed around my limbs and scorched my 
eyes to blindness, and as though my ashes had been scattered to the four 
winds by all the countless hands of hate. And, while I so feel, I swear 
that while I live I will do what little I can to augment the liberties of 
man, woman and child. I denounce slavery and superstition every- 
where. I believe in liberty, and happiness, and love, and joy in this 
world. I am amazed that any man ever had the impudence to try and 


SKULLS AND REPLIES. 115 
do another man’s thinking. I have just as good a right to talk about 
theology as a minister. If they all agreed I might admit it wasa 
science, but as they all disagree, and the more they study the wider they 
get apart, I may be permitted to suggest it is not a science. When no 
two will tell you the road to Heaven--that is, giving you the same route 
—end if you would inquire of them all, you would just give up trying 


‘ to go there, and say: ‘I may as well stay where I am, and let the Lord 


‘come to me.” 

Do you know that this world has not been fit for a lady and gentle- 
man to live in for twenty-five years, just on account of slavery. It was 
not until the year 1808 that Great Britain abolished the slave trade, and 
up to that time her judges, her priests occupying her pulpits, the mem- 
ers of the royal family, owned stock in the slave ships, and luxuriated 
upon the profits of piracy and murder. It was not until the same year 
that the United States of America abolished the slave trade between this 
and other countries, but carefully preserved it as between the states. It 
was not until the 28th day of August, 1833, that Great Britain abolished 
human slavery in her colonies; and it was not until the 1st day of Jan- 
uary, 1863, that Abraham Lincoln, sustained by the sublime and heroic 
North, rendered our flag pure as the sky in which it floats. Abraham 
Lincoln was, in my judgment, in many respects, the grandest man ever 
president of the United States. Upon his monument these words should 
be written: “ Here sleeps the only man in the history of the world, who, 
having been clothed with almost absolute power, never abused it, except 
upon the side of mercy.” 

For two hundred years the Christians of the United States deliberately 
turned the cross of Christ into a whipping-post. Christians bred hounds 
to catch other Christians. Let me show you what the Bible has dgne 


‘for mankind: “ Servants, be obedient to your masters.”’ The only word 


coming from that sweet Heaven was, ‘Servants, obey your masters.” 
Frederick Douglas told me that he had lectured upon the subject of 
freedom twenty years before he was permitted to set his foot ina church. 
I tell you the world has not been fit to live in for twenty-five years. 
‘Then all the people used to cringe and crawl to preachers. Mr. Buckle, 
in his history of civilization, shows that men were even struck dead for 
speaking impolitely to a priest. God would not stand it. See how thtey 
used to crawl before cardinals, bishops and popes. It is not so now. 
Before wealth they bowed to the very earth, and in the presence of titles 
they became abject. All this is slowly, but surely changing. We no 
longer bow to men simply because they are rich. Uur fathers wor- 
shipped the golden calf. The worst you can say of an American now 
is, he worships the gold of the calf. Even the calf is beginning to see 
this distinction. 


116 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. , 

The time will come when no matter how much money a nhan has, he 
will not be respected unless he is using it for the benefit of his fellow- 
men. It willsoonbehere. It nolonger satisfies the ambition of a great 
man to be king or emperor. The last Napoleon was not satisfied with 
being the emperor of the French. He was not satisfied with having a 
circlet of gold about his head. He wanted some evidence that he had 
something of value within his head. So he wrote the life of Julius 
Cesar, that he might become a member of the French academy. The 
emperors, the kings, the popes, no longer tower above their fellows. 
Compare, for instance, King William and Helmholtz. The king is one 
of the anointed by the Most High, as they claim—-one upon whose head 
has been poured the divine petroleum of authority. Compare this king 
with Helmholtz, who towers an intellectual Colossus above the crowned 
mediocrity. Compare George Eliot with Queen Victoria. The queen 
is clothed in garments given her by blind fortune and unreascning 
chance, while George Eliot wears robes of glory woven in the loom of 
her own genius. And soit isthe worldover. The time is coming when 
a man will be rated at his real worth, and that by his brain and heart. 
We care nothing now about an officer unless he fills his place. No mat- 
ter if he is president, if he rattles in the place nobody cares anything 
about him. I might give you an instance in point, but I won’t. The 
world is getting better and grander and nobler every day. 


Now, if men have been slaves, if they have crawled in'the dust before 


one another, what shall I say of women? They have been the slaves of 
men. It took thousands of ages to bring women from abject slavery up 
to the divine height of marriage. I believe in marriage. If there is 
any Heaven upon earth it isin the family by the fireside, and the famiy 
is® unit of government. Without the family relation is tender, pure 
and true, civilization is impossible. Ladies, the ornaments you wear 
upon your persons to-night are but the souvenirs of your mother’s bond- 
age. The chains around your necks, and the bracelets clasped upon 
your white arms by the thrilled hand of love, have been changed by the 
wand of civilization from iron to shining, glittering gold. Nearly every 
civilization in this world accounts for the devilment in it by the crimes 
of. woman. They say woman brought all the trouble into the world. I 
don’t care if she did. I would rather live in a world full of trouble with 
the women I love, than to livein Heaven with nobody but men. I read 
in a book an account of the creation of the world. The book I have 
taken pains to say was not written by any God. And why do I say so? 
Because I can write a far better book myself. Because it is full of bar- 
barisms. Several ministers in this city have undertaken to answer me 
—notably those who don’t believe the Bible themselves. I want to ask 
these Mick me tung. . Wael Tcem x 2 AL, 


SKULLS AND REPLIES. 117 


Every minister in the City of Chicago that answers me, and those 
who have answered me had better answer me again — I want them to 
say, and without any sort of evasion — without resorting to any pious 
tricks — I want them to say whether they believe that the Eternal God 
of this universe ever upheld the crime of polygamy. Say it square and 
fair. Don’t begin to talk about that being a peculiar time, and that God 
was easy on the prejudices of those old fellows. I want them to answer 
that question and to answer it squarely, which they haven’t done. Did 
this God, which you pretend to worship, ever sanction the institution of 
human slavery? Now, answer fair? Don’t slide around it. Don’t 
begin and answer what a bad man I am, nor what a good man Moses 
was. Stick to the text. Do you believe in a God that allowed a man to 
be sold from. his children? Do you worship such an infinite monster? 
And if you do, tell your congregation whether you are not ashamed to 
admit it. Let every minister who answers me again tell whether he 
believes God commanded his general to kill the little dimpled babe in 
the cradle. Let him answer it. Don’t say that those were very bad 
times. Tell whether He did it or not, and then your people will know 
whether to hate that God or not. Be honest. Tell them whether that 
God in war captured young maidens and turned them over to the soldiers; 
and then ask the wives and sweet girls of your congregation to get down 
on their knees and worship the infinite fiend that did that thing. 
Answer! It is your God I am talking about, and if that is what God 
did, please tell your congregation what, under the same circumstances, 
the devil would have done. Don’t tell your people that is a poem. 
Don’t tell your people that is pictorial. That won’t do. Tell your 
people whether it is true or false. That is what I want you to do. 

In this book I have read about God’s making the world and one man. 
That is all he intended to make. The making of woman was a second 
thought, though I am willing to admit that as arule second thoughts 
are best. This God made aman and put him in a public park. In a 
little while He noticed that the man got lonesome; then He found He 
had made a mistake, and that He would have to make somebody to keep 
him company. But having used up all the nothing He originally used 
in making the world and one man, He had to take a part of a man to 
start a woman with. So He causes sleep to fall on this man—now under- 
stand me, I do not say this story is true. After the sleep had fallen on 
this man the Supreme Being took a rib, or, as the French would call 
it, a cutlett, out of him, and from that He made a woman; and I am 
willing to swear, taking into account the amount and quality of the raw 
material used, this was the most magnificent job ever accomplished in 
this world. Well, after He got the woman done she was brought to the 
man, not to see how she liked him, but to see how he liked her. He 


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118 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


liked her and they started housekeeping, and they were told of certain 
things they might do and of one thing they could not do—and of course 
they did it. .I would have done it in fifteen minutes, I know it. There — 
wouldn’t have been an apple on that tree half an hour from date, and 
the limbs would have been full of ciubs. And then they were turned 
out of the park and extra policemen were put on to keep them from 
getting back. And then trouble commenced and we have been at it ever 
since. Nearly all of the religions of this world account for the exist- — 
ence of evil by such a story as that. 

Well, I read in another book what appeared to be an account of the 
same transaction. It was written about four thousand years before the 
ether. All commentators agree that the one that was written last was 
the original, and the one that was written first was copied from the one | 
that was written last; But I would advise you all not to’allow your 
creed to be disturbed by a little matter of four or five thousand years. 
It is a great deal better to be mistaken in dates than to go to the devil. 
In this other account the Supreme Brahma made up his mind to make 
the world and aman and woman. He made the world, and he made 
the man and then the woman, and put them on the Island of Ceylon. 
According to the account it qvas the most beautiful island of which man 
can conceive. Such birds, such songs, such flowers, and such verdure! 
And the branches of the trees were so arranged that when the wind 
swept through them every tree was athousand Aolian harps. Brahma, 
when he put them there, said: ‘“ Let them havea period of courtship, 
for it is my desire and will that true love should forever precede mar- 
riage.” When I read that, it wasso much more beautiful and lofty than 
the other, that I said to myself: “If either one of these stories ever 
turns out to be true, I hope it will be this one.” ; 

Then they had their courtship, with the nightingale singing and the 
stars shining and the flowers blooming, and they fell in love. Imagine 
that courtship! No prospective fathers or mothers-in-law; no prying 
and gossiping neighbors; nobody to say, “ Young man, how do you 
expect to support her?’ Nothing of that kind—nothing but the night 
ingale singing its song of joy and pain, as though the thorn already 
touched its heart. They were married by the Supreme Brahma, and he 
said tothem, “ Remain here; you must never leave this island.” Well, 
after a little while the man—and his name was Adami, and the woman’s 
name was Heva—said to Heva: “I believe I'll look about a little.” 
He wanted to go West. He went to the western extremity of the island 
where there was a little narrow neck of land connecting it with the 
mainland, and the Devil, who is always playing pranks with us, pro- 
duced a mirage, and when he looked over to the mainland, such hiHs 
and vales, such dells and dales, such mountains crowned with snow, — 


SKULLS AND REPLIES. 119 


such cataracts clad in bows of glory did he see there, that he went back 
and told Heva: ‘The country over there is a thousand times better 
than this; let us migrate.’ She, like every other woman that ever 
lived, said: ‘‘ Let well enough alone; we have all we want; let us stay 
here.” Buthesaid: ‘No, let us go;” so she followed him, and when 
they came to this narrow neck of land, he took her on his back like a 
gentleman, and carried her over. Butthe moment they got over they : 
heard a crash, and, looking back, discovered that this narrow neck of 
land had fallen into the sea.. The mirage had disappeared, and there 
was naught but rocks and sand, and then the Supreme Brahma cursed 
them both to the lowest Hell. 

Then it was that the man spoke—and I have liked him ever since for 
it—“‘ Curse me, but curse not her; it was not her fault, it was mine.” 
That’s the kind of a man to start a world with. The Supreme Brahma 
said: “TI will save her but not thee.” And then spoke out of her full- 
ness of love, out of a heart in which there was love enough to make 
all her daughters rich in holy affection, and said: ‘Ifthou wilt not 
spare him, spare neither me; I do not wish to live without him, I 
love him.” Then the Supreme Brahma said—and I have liked him 
ever since I read it—“‘I will spare you both, and watch over you and 
your children forever.’ Honor bright, is that not the better and 
grander story ? 

And in that same book I find this: ‘“ Man is strength, woman is 
beauty; man is courage, woman is love. When the one man loves the 
one woman, and the one woman loves the one man, the very angels 
leave Heaven, and come and sit in that house, and sing for joy.’’ In the 
same book this: “ Blessed is that man, and beloved of all the gods, who 
is afraid of no man, and of whom no man is afraid.” Magnificent char- 
acter! A missionary certainly ought to talk to that man. And [I find 
‘this: “ Never will I accept private, individual salvation, but rather will 
I stay and work, strive and suffer, until every soul from every star has 
been brought home to God.” Compare that with the Christian that 
expects to go to Heaven while the world is rolling over Niagara to an 
eternal and unending Hell. So I say that religion lays all the crime and 
troubles of this world at the beautiful feet of woman. And then the 
church has the impudence to say that it has exalted women. I believe 
that marriage is a perfect partnership; that woman has every right that 
man has—and one more—the right to be protected. Above all men in 
the world I hate a stingy man—a man that will make his wife beg for 
money. “What did you do with the dollar I gave you last week?” 
“ And what are you going to do with this?” Itis vile. No gentleman 
will ever be satisfied with the love of a beggar and a slave—uo gentle- 
man will ever be satisfied except with the love of an equal. What kind 


120 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


of children does a man expect to have with a beggar for their mother? 
A man can not be so poor but that he can be generous, and if you 
only have one dollar in the world and you have got to spend it, spend 
it like a lord—spend it as though it were a dry leaf, and you the owner 
of unbounded forests—spend it as though you had a wilderness of your 
own. That’s.the way to spend it. 

I had rather be a beggar and spend my last dollar like a king, than 
be aking and spend my money like a beggar. If it has got to go letit 
go. And this is my advice to the poor. For you can never be so poor 
that whatever you do you can’t do in a grand and manly way. I hatea 
cross man. What right has a man to assassinate the joy of life? When 
you go home you ought to go like a ray of light—so that it will, even 
in the night, burst out of the doors and windows and illuminate the 
darkness. Some men think their mighty brains have been in a turmoil; 
they have been thinking about who will be Alderman from the Fifth 
Ward; they have been thinking about politics, great and mighty ques- 
tions have been engaging their minds, they have bought calico at five 
cents or six, and want to sell it for seven. Think of the intellectual 
strain that must have been upon that man, and when he gets home 
everybody else in the house must look out for his comfort. A woman 
who has only taken care of five or six children, and one or two of them 
sick, has been nursing them and singing to them, and trying to make 
one yard of cloth do the work of two, she, of course, is fresh and fine 
and ready to wait upon this gentleman—the head of the family—the 
boss! 

I was reading the other day of an apparatus invented for the eject- 
ment of gentlemen who subsist upon free lunches. It is so arranged 
that when the fellow gets both hands into the victuals, a large hand 
descends upon him, jams his hat over his eyes—he is seized, turned 
toward the door, and just in the nick of time an immense boot comes 
from the other side, kicks him in italics, sends him out over the side- 
walk and lands him rolling in the gutter. I never hear of such a 
man—a boss—that I don’t feel as though that machine ought to be 
brought into requisition for his benefit. 

Love is the only thing that will pay ten per cent of interest on the out- 
lay. Love is the only thing in which the height of extravagance is the 

‘last degree of economy. It is the only thing, I tell you. Joy is wealth. 
Love is the legal tender of the soul—and you need not be rich to be 
happy. We have all been raised on success in this country. Always 
been talked with about being successful, and have never thought our- 
selves very rich unless we were the possessors of some magnificent man- 
sion, and unless our names have been between the putrid lips of rumor 
we could not be happy. Every little boy is striving to be this and be 


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SKULLS AND REPLIES. a 121 


that. I tell you the happy man is the successful man. Tse man that 
has won the love of one good woman is a successful man. The man 
that has been the emperor of one good heart, and that heart embraced all 
his, has been a success. If another has been the emperor of the round 
world and has never loved and been loved, his life is a failure. It won’t 
do. Let us teach our children the other way, that the happy man is the 
successful man, and he who is a happy man is the one who always tries 
to make some one else happy. 

The man who marries 2 woman to make her happy; that marries her 
as much for her own sake as for his own; not the man that thinks his 
wife is his property, who thinks that the title to her belongs to him— 
that the woman is the property of the man; wretches who get mad at 
their wives and then shoot them down in the street because they think 
the woman is their property. I tell you it is not necessary to be rich 
and great and powerful to be happy. 

A little while ago I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon—a mag- 
nificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity—and gazed 
upon the sarcophagus of black Egyptian marble, where rest at last the 
ashes of the restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and thought 
about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world. I saw him 
walking upon the banks of the Seine, contemplating suicide—I saw 
him at Toulon—I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of Paris 
—I saw him at the head of the army of Italy—I saw him crossing the 
bridge of Lodi with the tri-color in his hand—I saw him in Egypt in 
the shadows of the pyramids—I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle 
the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at Marengo 
—at Ulm and Asterlitz. I saw him in Russia, where the infantry of the 
snow and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like Winter’s 
withered leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster—driven by 
a million bayonets back upon Paris—clutched like a wild beast—ban- 
ished to Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of 
his genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where 
chance and fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. 
And [I saw him at St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing 
out upon the sad and solemn sea. I thought of the orphans and widows 
he had made—of the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the 
only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold 
hand of ambition. And I said I would rather have been a French peas- 
ant and worn wooden shoes. I would rather have lived in a hut with a 
vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the kisses 
of the Autumn sun. I would rather have been that poor peasant with 
my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky— 
with my children upon my knees and their arms about me. I would 


122 < MISTAKES OF INGHRSOLL. 


rather have been that man and gone down to the tengueless silence o? 
the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial impersonation of 
force and murder known as Napoleon the Great. It is not necessary t¢ 
be rich in order to be happy. It is only necessary to be in love. Thou 
sands of men go to college and get a certificate that they have an edu 
cation, and that certificate is in Latin and they stop studying, and in twe 
years to save their life they couldn’t read the certificate they got. 

It is mostly so in marrying. They stop courting when they get mar. 
ried. They think, we have won her and that isenough. Ah! the differ- 
ence before and after! How well they look! How bright their eyes! 
How light their steps, and how full they were of generosity and laughter! 
I tell you a man should consider himself in good luck if a woman loves 
him when he is doing his level best! Good luck! Good luck! And 
another thing that is the cause of much trouble is that people don’t, count 
fairly. They do what they call putting their best foot forward. That 
means lying a little. I say put your worst foot forward. If you have 
got any faults admit them. If you drink, say so and quit it. If you 
chew and smoke and swear, say so. If some of your kindred are not 
very good people, say so. If you have had two or three that died on the 
gallows, or that ought to have died there, say so. Tell all your faults, 
and if after she knows your faults she says she will have you, you have 
got the dead wood on that woman forever. I claim that there should be 
perfect equality in the home, and I can not think of anything nearer 
Heaven than a home where there is true republicanism and true democ. 
racy at the fireside. All are equal. 

And then, do you know, I like to think that love is eternal; that if 
you really love the woman, for her sake, you will love her no matter 
what she may do; that if she really loves you, for your sake, the same; 
that love does not look at alterations, through the wrinkles of time, 
through the mask of years—if you really love her you will always see 
the face you loved and won. And I like to think of it. If a man loves 
a woman she does not ever growsold to him, and the woman who really 
loves 2 man does not see that he grows old. He is not decrepit to her, 
He is not tremulous. He is not old. He is not bowed. She always 
sees the same gallant fellow that won her hand and heart. I like to 
think of it in that way, and as Shakspeare says: ‘‘ Let Time reach with 
his sickle as far as ever he can; although he can reach ruddy cheeks and 
ripe lips, and flashing eyes, he can not quite reach love.” TI like to think 
of it. We will go down the hill of life together, and enter the shadow 
one with the other, and as we go down we may hear the ripple of the 
laughter of our grandchildren, and the birds, and spring, and youth, and 
love will sing once more upon the leafless branches of the tree of age. 


SKULLS AND REPLIES. 128 


I love to think of it in that way—absolute equals, happy, happy, and 
free, al: our own. 

But some people say: ‘“‘ Would you allow a woman to vote?” “Yes, 
if she wants to; that is her business, not mine. If a woman wants to 
vote, [am too much of a gentleman to say she shall not. But they say 
woman has not sense enough to vote. Itdon’t take much. But it seems 
to me there are some questions,-as for instance, the question of peace and 
war, that a woman should be allowed to vote upon. A woman that has 
sons to be offered on the altar of that Moloch, it seems to me that such a 
grand woman should have as much right to vote upon the question of 
peace and war as some thrice-besotted sot that reels to the ballot box and 
deposits his vote for war. But if women have been slaves, what shall 
we say of the little children born in the sub-cellars; children of poverty, 
children of crime, children of wealth, children that are afraid when 
they hear their rames pronounced by the lips of the mother, cbildren 
that cower in fear when they hear the footsteps of their brutal father, 
the flotsam and jetsam upon the rude sea of life, my heart goes out to 
them one and all. 

Children have all the rights that we have and one more, and that is to 
be protected. Treat your children in that way. Suppose yourchild tells 
@ lie. Don’t pretend that the whole world is going into bankruptcy. 
Don’t pretend that that is the first lie ever told. Tell them, like an hon- 
est man, that you have told hundreds of lies yourself, and tell the dear 
little darling that it is not the best way; that it soils the soul. Think of 
the man that deals in stocks whipving his children for putting false 
rumors afloat! Think of an orthodox minister whipping his own flesh 
and blood, for not telling all it thinks! Think of that! Think of a 
lawyer beating his child for avoiding the truth! when the old man 
makes about half his living that way. A lieis born of weakness on one 
side and tyranny on the other. Thatis what itis. Think of a great big 
man coming at a little bit of a child with a club in his hand! What is’ 
the little darling todo? Lie, of course. I think that mother Nature 
put that ingenuity into the mind of the child, when attacked by a parent, 
to throw up alittle breastwork in the shape of a lie to defend itself. 
When a great general wins a battle by what they call strategy, we build 
monuments to him. What isstrategy? Lies. Suppose a man as much 
larger than we are as we are larger than a child five years of age, should 
come at us with a liberty pole in his hand, and in tones of thunder want 
to know “ who broke that plate,” there isn’t one of us, not excepting 
myself, that wouldn’t swear that we never had seen that plate in our 
lives, or that it was cracked when we got it. 

Another good way to make children tell the truth is.to tell it sontsele 
Keep your word with your child the same as you would with your 


124 MISTAKES OF INGHRSOLL. 

banker. If you tell achild you will do anything, either do it or give 
the child the reason why. Truth is born of confidence. It comes from 
the lips of love and liberty. I was over in Michigan the other day. 
There was a boy over there at Grand Rapids about five or six years old, 
a nice, smart boy, as you will sec from the remark he made—what you 
might call a nineteenth century boy. His father and mother had prom- 
ised to take him out riding. They had promised to take him out riding 
for about three weeks, and they would slip off and go without him. 
Well, after a while, that got kind of played out with the little boy, and 
the day before I was there they played the trick on him again. They - 
went out and got the carriage, and went away, and as they rode away 
from the front of the house, he happened to be standing there with his 
nurse, and he saw them. The whole thing flashed on him in a moment. 
He took in the situation, and turned to his nurse and said, pointing to 
his father and mother: “‘ There goes the two d——t liars in the State of 
Michigan!” When you go home fill the house with joy, so that the 
light of it will stream out the windows and doors, and illuminate even 
the darkness. It is just as easy that way as any in the world. 

I want to tell you to-night that you can not get the robe of hypocrisy 
on you so thick that the sharp eye of childhood will not see through 
every veil, and if you pretend to your children that you are the best man 
that ever lived—the bravest man that ever lived—they will find you out 
every time. They will not have the same opinion of father when they 
grow up that they used to have. They will have to be in mighty bad 
luck if they ever do meaner things than you have done. When your 
child confesses to you that it has committed a fault, take that child in 
your arms, and let it feel your heart beat against its heart, and raise your 
children in the sunlight of love, and they will be sunbeams to you 
along the pathway of life. Abolish the club and the whip from the 
house, because, if the civilized use a whip, the ignorant and the brutal 
will use a club, and they will use it because you use the whip. 

Every little while some door is thrown open ir some orphan asylum, 
and there we see the bleeding back of a child whipped beneath the roof 
that was raised by love. It is infamous, and the man that can’t raise a 
child without the whip ought not to have a child. If there is one of 
you here that ever expect to whip your child again, let me ask you some- 
thing. Have your photograph taken at the time and let it show your 
face red with vulgar anger, and the face of the little one with eyes 
swimming in tears, and the little chin dimpled with fear, looking like a 
piece of water struck by a sudden cold wind. If that little child should 
die, I can not think of a sweeter way to spend an Autumn afternoon 
than to take that photograph and go to the cemetery, when the maples - 
are clad in tender gold, and when little scarlet runners are coming from 


SKULLS AND REPLIES. 125 


the sad heart of the earth, and sit down upon that mound, and look upon 
that photograph, and think of the flesh, now dust, that you beat. Just 
think of it. I could not bear to die in the arms of a child that I had 
whipped. I could not bear to feel upon my lips, when they were 
withered beneath the touch of death, the kiss of one that I had struck. 
Some Christians act as though they really thought that when Christ 
said, “Suffer little children to come unto me,” He had a rawhide under 
' His coat. They act as though they really thought that He made that 
remark simply to get the children within striking distance. 

I have known Christians to turn their children from their doors, 
especially a daughter, and then get down on their knees and pray to God 
to watch over them and help them. I will never ask God to help my - 
children unless I am doing my level best in that same wretched line. 
1 will tell you what I say to my girls: ‘“‘Go where you will; do what 
crime you may; fall to what depth of degradation you may; in all the 
storms and winds and earthquakes of life, no matter what you do, you 
never can commit any crime that will shut my door, my arms or my 
heartto you. As long as I live you shall have one sincere friend.”’ Call 
me an antheist; call me an infidel because I hate the God of the Jew— 
which Ido. I intend so to live that when I die my children can come 
to my grave and truthfully say: “ He who sleeps here never gave us one 
moment of pain.” 

When I was a boy there was one day in each week too good for a - 
child to be happy in. In these good old times Sunday commenced when 
the sun went down on Saturday night, and closed when the sun went 
down on Sunday night. Wecommenced Saturday to get a good ready. 

‘And when the sun went down Saturday night there was a gloom deeper 
than midnight that fell upon the house. You could not crack hickory 
nutsthen. And if you were caught chewing gum, it was only another 
evidence of the total depravity of the human heart. Well, after a while 
we got to bed sadly and sorrowfully after having heard Heaven thanked | 
that we were not all in Hell. And I sometimes used to wonder how the 
mercy of God lasted as long as it did, because I recollected that on sev- 
eral occasions I had not been at schoo!, when I was supposed to be there. 
Why I was not burned to a crisp was a mystery to me. The next morn- 
ing we got up and we got ready for church—all solemn, and when we got 
there the minister was up in the pulpit, about twenty feet high, and he 
commenced at Genesis about “The fall of man,” and he went on to about 
twenty thirdly; then he struck the second application, and when he 
struck the application I knew he was about half way through. And 
then he went on to show the scheme how the Lord was satisfied by pun- 
ishing the wrong man. Nobody but a God would have thought of that 
ingenious way. Well, when he got through that, then came the catechism 


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126 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


—the chief end of man. Thenemy turn came, and we sat along on a little 
bench where our feet came within about fifteen inches Or the floor, and the 
dear old minister used to ask us: 

“Boys, do you know that you ought to be in Hell ?” 

And we answered up as cheerfully as could be expected under the cir- 
cumstances: 

<V es2.sir. 

“Well, boys, do you know that you would go to Hell if you died in ~ 
your sins?” | 

And we said: “ Yes, sir.” 

And then came the great test: 

“Boys’—I can’t get the tone, you know. And do you know that is 
how the preachers get the bronchitis. You never heard of an auctioneer 
getting the bronchitis, nor the second mate on a steamboat—never. 
What gives it to the minister is talking solemnly when they don’t feel 
that way, and it has the same influence upon the organs of speech that 
it would have upon the cords of the calves of your legs to walk on your 
tip-toes, and so I call bronchitis “ parsonitis.” And if the ministers 
would all tell exactly what they think they would all get well, but keep- 
ing back a part of the truth is what gives them bronchitis. 

Well the old man—the dear old minister—used to try and show us 
how long we would be in Hell if we would only locate there. But to 
finish the other. The grand test -question was: . 

‘“‘ Boys, if it was God’s will that you should go to Hell, would you be 
willing to go?” 

And every little liar said: ’ 

“Yes, sir.” 

Then, in order to tell how long we would stay there, he used to gay: 

“Suppose once in a billion ages a bird should come frem a far distant 
clime and carry off in its bill one little grain of sand, the time would 
finally come when the last grain of sand would be carried away. Do 
you understand ? 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“‘ Boys, by that time it would not be sun-up in Hell.” 

Where did that doctrine of Hell comefrom? I will tell you; from that 
fellow in the dug-out. Where did he get it? It was a souvenir from 
the wild beasts. Yes, I tell you he got it from the wiid beasts, from the 
glittering eye of the serpent, from the coiling, twisting snakes with their 
fangs mouths; and it came from the bark, growl and howl] of wild beasts; 
it was born of a laugh of the hyena and got it from the depraved chatter 
of malicious apes. And I despise it with every drop of my blood and 
defy it. Ifthere is any God in this universe who will damn his children 
for an expression of an honest thought I wish to go to Hell. I weuld 


SKULLS AND REPLIES. 127 


rather go there than go to Heaven and keep the company of a God that 
would thus damn his children. Oh! it is an infamous doctrine to teach 
chat to little children, to put a shadow in the heart ofa child to fili the in- 
sane asylums with that miserable, infamous lie. I see now and then a 
little girl—a dear little darling, with a face like the light, and eyes of 
joy, a human blossom, and [ think, “ is it possible that little girl will 
ever grow up to be a Presbyterian?’ Is it possible, my goodness, that 
that flower will finally believe in the five points of Calvinism or in the 
eternal damnation of man?’ Is it possible that that little fairy will 
finally believe that she could be happy in Heaven with her baby in Hell? 
Think of it! Think of it! And that is the Christian religion! 

We cry out against the Indian mother that throws her child into the 
Ganges to be devoured by the alligator or crocodile, but that is joy in 
comparison with the Christian mother’s hope, that she may be in salva- 
tion while her brave boy is in Hell. 

I tell you I want to kick the doctrine about Hell—I want to kick it out 
every time I go by it. I want to get Americans in this country placed 
so they will be ashamed to preach it. I wantto get the congregations so 
that they won’t listen to it. We can not divide the world off into 
saints and sinners in that way. There isa little girl, fair as a flower, 
and she grows up until she is twelve, thirteen, or fourteen years old. 
Are you going to damn her in the fifteenth, sixteenth or seventeenth year, 
when the arrow from Cupid’s bow touches her heart and she is glorified 
—are you going to damn her now? She marries and loves, and holds in 
her arms a beautifulchild. Areyou going to damn her now? When are 
you going todamn her? Because she has listened to some Methodist 
minister and after all that flood of light failed to believe? Are you 
going to damn her then? I tell you God can not afford to damn such a 
woman. 

_ A woman in the State of Indiana forty or fifty years ago who carded 
the wool and made rolls and spun them, and made the cloth and cut out 
the clothes for the children, and nursed them, and sat up with them 
nights and gave them medicine, and held them in her arms and wept 
over them—cried for joy and wept for fear, and finally raised ten or 
eleven good men and women with the ruddy glow of health upon their 
cheeks, and she would have died for any one of them any moment of 
her life, and finally she, bowed with age and bent with care and labor, 
dies, and at the moment the magical touch of death is upon her face, 
she looks as though she never had had acare, and her children burying her 
cover her face with tears, Do you tell me God can afford to damn that 
kind of a woman? One such act of injustice would turn Heaven itself 
into Hell. ‘If there is any God, sitting above him in infinite serenity we 
have the figure of justice. Even aGod must do justice; even a God 


128 MISTAKES OF INGHRSOLL. 


must worship justice; and any form of superstition that destroys justice 
is infamous! Just think of teaching that doctrine to little children! A 
little child would go out into the garden, and there would be a little tree 
laden with blessoms, and the little fellow would lean against it, and 
there would be a bird on one of the bows, singing and swinging, and 
thinking about four little speckled eyes warmed by the breast of its 
mate,—singing and swinging, and the music in happy waves rippling 
out of the tiny throat, and the flowers blossoming, the air filled with 
perfume, and the great white clouds floating in the sky, and the little boy 
would lean up against the tree and think about Hell and the worm that 
never dies. Oh! the idea there can be any day too good for a child to 
be happy in! 

Well, after we got over the catechism, then came the sermon in the 
afternoon, and it was exactly like the one in the fore-noon, except the 
other endto. Then westarted for home—a solemn march—‘ not a soldier 
discharged his farewell shot’—and when we got home if we had been 
real good boys we used to be taken up to the cemetery to cheer us up, 
and it always did cheer me, those sunken graves, those leaning stones, 
those gloomy epitaphs covered with the moss of years always cheered 
me. When I looked at them I said: ‘Well, this kind of thing can’t 
last always.’”’ Then we came back home, and we had books to read 
which were very eloquent and amusing. We had Josephus, and the 
“‘ History of the Waldenses,” and ‘ Fox’s Book of Martyrs,” Baxter’s 
“Saint's Rest,” and “Jenkyn on the Atonement.’’ I used to read 
Jenkyn with a good deal of pleasure, and I often thought that the atone- 
ment would have to be very broad in its provisions to cover the case of 
aman that would write such a book for the boys. Then I would look 
to see how the sun was getting on, and sometimes [ thougt it had stuck 
from pure cussedness. Then I would go back and try Jenkyn’s again. 
Well, but it had to go down, and when the last rim of light sank below 
the horizon, off would go our hats and we would give three cheers for 
liberty once again. 

I tell you, don’t make slaves of your children on Sunday. 

The idea that there is any God that hates to hear a child laugh! Let 
your children play games on Sunday, Here is a poor man that hasn’t 
money enough to go to a big church and he has too much independence 
to go to a little church that the big church built for charity. He don’t 
want to slide into Heaven that way. I tell you don’t come to church, 
but go to the woods and take your family and a lunch with you, and sit 
down upon the old log and let the children gather flowers and hear the 
leaves whispering poems like memories of long ago, and when the sun is 
about going down, kissing the summits of far hills, go home with your 
hearts filled with throbs of joy. There is more recreation and joy in that 


ee ok OL SP ee Re | es Td ' 4X 
ti Pi hee ODN oae ue a at ; s 


SKULLS AND REPLIES. : 129 


than going to a dry goods box with a steeple on top of it aad hearing a 
man tell you that your chances are about ninety-nine to one for being 
eternally damned. Let us make this Sunday a day of splendid pleasure, 
not to excess, but to everything that makes man purer and grander and 
nobler. I would like to see now something like this: Instead of so 
many churches, a vast cathedral that would hold twenty or thirty thou- 
sand of people, and I would like tosee an opera produced in it that would 
make the souls of men have higher and grander and nobler aims. I 
would like to see the walls covered with pictures and the niches rich 
with statuary; I would like to see something put there that you could 
use in this world now, and I do not believe in sacrificing the present to 
the future; I do not believe in drinking skimmed milk here with the 
promise of butter beyond the clouds. Space or time can not be holy any 
more than a vacuum can be pious. Not a bit, not a bit; and no day can 
be so holy but what the laugh of a child will make it holier still. 

Strike with hand of fire, on, weird musician, thy harp, strung with 
Apollo’s golden hair! Fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies 
sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ’s keys; blow, bugler, blow 
until thy silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves, and charm 
the lovers wandering ’mid the vine-clad hills. But know your sweetest 
strains are discords all compared with childhood’s happy laugh—the 
laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy! O, rippling 
river of laughter, thou art the blessed boundary line between the beasts 
and men, and every wayward wave of thine doth drown some fretfui 
fiend of care. O Laughter, rose lipped daughter of Joy, there are dim- 
ples enough in thy cheeks to catch and hold and glorify all the tears of 
grief. 

Don’t plant your children in long, straight rows, like posts. Let them 
have light and air and let them grow beautiful as palms. When I was 
a little boy children went to bed when they were not sleepy, and always 
got up when they were. I would like io see that changed, but they say 
we are too poor, some of us, to doit. Well, all right. It is as easy to 
wake a child with a kiss as with a blow; with kindness as with a curse, 
And, another thing; let the children eat what they want to. Let them 
commence at whichever end of the dinner they desire. That is my doc- 
trine. They know what they want much better than you do. Nature 
is a great deal smarter than you ever were. 

All the advance that has been made in the science of medicine, has 
been made by the recklessness of patients. I can recollect when they 
wouldn’t give a man water in a fever—nota drop. Now and then some 
fellow would get so thirsty he would say: ‘‘ Well, I'll die any way, so 
Tll drink it,’ and thereupon he would drink a galion of water, and 
thereupon he would burst into a generous perspiration, and get well— 


130 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. ee 


and the next morning when the doctor would come to see him they 
would tell him about the man drinking the water, and he would say: 
“How much ?” 

“Well, he swallowed two pitchers full,” 

“Ts he alive?’ 

“ Yes.”’ = 

So they would go into the room and the doctor would feel his pulse 
and ask him: 

“ Did you drink two pitchers of water?” 

«i Yes.” - 

“My God! what a constitution you have got.” 

I tell you there is something splendid in man that will not always 
mind. Why, if we had done as the kings told us five hundred years 
ago, we would all have been slaves. If we had done as the priests told 
us we would all have been idiots. If we had done as the doctors told 
us we would all have been dead. We have been saved by disobedience. 
We have been saved by that splendid thing called independence, and I 
want to see more of it, day after day, and I want to see children raised 
so they will have it. That is my doctrine. Give the children a chance. 
Be perfectly honor bright with them, and they will be your friends when — 
you are old. Don’t try to teach them something they can never learn, a 
Don’t insist upon their pursuing some calling they have no sort of fac- 
ulty for. Don’t make that poor girl play ten years on a piano when she 
fias no ear for music, and when she has practiced until she can play 
“ Bonaparte crossing the Alps,” and you can’t tell after she has played 
it whether Bonaparte ever got across or not. Men are oaks, women are 
vines, children are flowers, and if there is any Heaven in this world, it is 
in the family. It is where the wife loves the husband, and the husband — 
loves the wife, and where the dimpled arms of childtat are about the 
necks of both. That is Heaven, if there is any—and I do not want any 
' better Heaven in another world than that, and if in another world I can 
not live with the ones I loved here, then I would rather not be there. 
I would rather resign. 

Well, my friends, I have some excuses to make for the race to which 
{ belong. In the first place, this world is not very well adapted to rais- 
ing good men and good women. It is three times better adapted to the 
cultivation of fish than of people. There is one little narrow belt running 
zigag around the world, in which men and women of genius can be 
raised, and that is all. It is with man as it is with vegetation. Inthe 
valley you find the oak and elm tossing their branches defiantly to the 
storm, and as you advance up the mountain side the hemlock, the pine, — 
the birch, the spruce, the fir, and finally you come to little dwarfed trees, — 
that look like other trees seen through a telescope reversed—every limb 


SKULIS AND REPLIES. 131 


_twisted as through pain—getting a scanty substance from the miserly. 
crevices of the rocks. You goon and on, until at last the highest crag is 
freckled with a kind of moss, and vegetation ends. You might as well 
try to raise oaks and elms where the mosses grow, as to raise great men 
and great women where their surroundings are unfavorable. You must 
have the proper climate and soil. 

There never has been a man or woman of genius from the southern 
hemisphere, because the Lord didn’t allow the right climate to fall upon 
the land. It falls upon the water. There never was much civilization 
except where there has been snow, and ordinarily decent Winter. You 
can’t have civilization without it. Where man needs no bedclothes but 
clouds, revolution is the normal condition of such a people. It is the 
Winter that gives us the home; it is the Winter that gives us the fireside - 
and the family relation and all the beautiful flowers of love that adorn 
that relation. Civilization, liberty, justice, charity and intellectual 
advancement are all flowers that bloom in the drifted snow. You can’t 
have them anywhere else, and that is the reason we of the north are 
Civilized, and that is the reason that civilization has always been with 
Winter. That is the reason that philosophy has been here, and, in spite 
of all our superstitions, we have advanced beyond some of the other 
races, because we have had this assistance of nature, that drove us into 
the family relation, that made us prudent; that made us lay up at one 
time for another season of the year. So there is one excuse I have for 
my race. 

I have got another. J think we came from the lower animals. I am 
not dead sure of it, but think so. When [I first read about it I didn’t 
like it. My heart was filled with sympathy for those people leave noth- 
ing te be proud of except ancestors. I thought how terrible this will be 
upon the nobility of the old world. Think of their being forced to trace 
their ancestry back to the Duke Orang-Outang or to the Princess Chim- 
panzee. After thinking it all over I came to the conclusion that I liked 
that doctrine. I became convinced in spite of myself. I read about 
rudimentary bones and muscles. I was told that everybody had rudi- 
mentary muscles extending from the ear into the cheek. I asked: 
“What are they?’ I wastold: “They are the remains of muscles; that 
they became rudimentary from the lack of use.” They went into bank- 
ruptcy. They are the muscles with which your ancestors used to flap 
their ears. Well, at first, I was greatly astonished, and afterward I was 
more astonished to find they had become rudimentary. How can yeu 
account for John Calvin unless we came up from the lower animals? 
How could you account for a man that would use the extremes of torture 
unless you admit that there is in man tle elements of a snake, of a vul- 
ture, a hyena, and a jackal? How can you account for the religious 


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Fhe. eo Ay ae te i ae iY “ 
' Finn Pair Myint baie eh Se Aa WE Ua ee mee! 


182 : MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. ‘ 
creeds of to-day? How can you account for that infamous doctrine of — 
Hell, except with an animal origin? How can you account for your 
conception of a God that would sell women and babes into slavery ? 

Well, I thought that thing over and I began to like it after a while, 
and [ said: ‘It is not so much difference who my father was as who his 
son is.” And I finally said I would rather belong to a race that com- 
menced with the skulless vertebrates in the dim Laurentian seas, that 
wriggled without knowing why they wriggled, swimming without know- 
ing where they were going, that come along up by degrees through 
millions of ages, through all that crawls, and swims, and floats, and runs, 
and growls, and barks, and howls, until it struck this fellow in the dug- 
out. And then that fellow in the dug-out getting a little grander, and 
each one below calling every one above him a heretic, calling every one 
who had made a little advance an infidel or an atheist, and finally the 
heads getting a little higher and donning up a little grander and more 
splendidly, and finally produced Shakspeare, who harvested all the field 
of dramatic thought and from whose day until now there have been none 
but gleaners of chaff and straw. Shakspeare was an intellectual ocean 
whose waves touched all the shores of human thought, within which 
were all the tides and currents and pulses upon which lay all the lights 
and shadows, and over which brooded all the calms, and swept all the 
storms and tempests of which the souliscapable. I would rather belong 
to that race that commenced with that skulless vertebrate; that produced 
Shakspeare, a race that has before it an infinite future, with the angel 
of progress leaning from the far horizon, beckoning men forward and 
upward forever. I would rather belong to that race than to have de- 
scended from a perfect pair upon which the Lord has lost money every 
moment from that day to this. 

Now, my crime has been this: I have insisted that the Bible is not 
the word of God. I have insisted that we should not whip our children. 
I have insisted that we should treat our wives as loving equals. I have 
denied that. God—if there is any God—ever upheld polygamy and slav- 
ery. I have denied that that God ever told his generals to kill innocent 
babes and tear and rip open women with the sword of war. I have 
denied that, and for that I have been assailed by the clergy of the United 
States. They tell me I have misquoted; and I owe it to you, and maybe 
I owe it to myself, to read one or two words to you upon this subject. 
In. order to do that I shall have to put on my glasses; and that brings 
me back to where I started—that man has advanced just in proportion » 
as his thought has mingled with his labor. If man’s eyes hadn’t failed 
he would never have made any spectacles, he would never have had the 
telescope, and he never would have been able to read the leaves of 
Heaven. 


, SKULLS AND REPLIES. 133 


Mr. Ingersoll’s Reply to Dr. Collyer. 


Now, they tell me—and there are several gentlemen who have spoken 
on this subject—the Rev. Mr. Collyer, a gentleman standing as high as 
anybody, and I have nothing to say against him, because I denounce a 
God who upheld murder, and slavery and polygamy, he says that what 
I said was slang. I would like to have it compared with any sermon 
that ever issued from the lips of that gentleman. And before he gets 
through he admits that the Old Testament is a rotten tree that will soon 
fall into the earth and act as a fertilizer for his doctrine. 

Is it honest in that man to assail my motive? Let him answer my 
argument! Is it honest and fair in him to say I am doing a certain 
thing because itis popular? Has it got to this, that, in this Christian 
country, where they have preached every day hundreds and thousands 
of sermons—has it got to this that infidelity is so popular in the United 
States ? 

If it has, I take courage. And I not only see the dawn of a brighter 
day, but the day is here. Think of it! A minister tells me in this year 
of grace, 1879, that a man is an infidel simply that he may be popular. 
I am glad of it. Simply that he may make money. Is it possible 
that we can make more money tearing up churches than in building 
them up? Is it possible that we can make more money denouncing the 
God of slavery than we can praising the God that took liberty from man? 
if so, I am glad. 

I call publicly upon Robert Collyer—a man for whom I have great 
yespect—I call publicly upon Robert Collyer to state to the people of 
this city whether he believes the Old Testament was inspired. I call 
upon him to state whether he believes that God ever upheld these 
institutions; whether he believes that God was a polygamist; whether 
he believes that God commanded Moses or Joshua or any one else to 
slay little children in the cradle. Do you believe that Robert Collyer 
would obey such an order? Do you believe that he would rush to the 
cradle and drive the knife of theological hatred to the tender heart of a 
dimpled child?. And yet when I denounce a God that will give such a 
hellish order, he says it is slang. . 

I want him to answer; and when he answers he will say he does not 
believe the Bible is inspired. That is what he will say, and he holds 
these old worthies in the same contempt that Ido. Suppose he should 
act like Abraham. Suppose he should send some woman out into the 
wilderness with his child in her arms to starve, would he think that 
mankind ought to hold his name up forever, for reverence? 

Robert Collyer says that we should read and scan every word of the 
Old Testament with reverence; that we should take this book up with 


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Sa Py tits anil et 4s FOR 
. 4 ee a: 


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boils, 
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134 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


reverential hands. I deny it. Weshould read it as we do every other 
book, and everything good init, keep it; and everything that shocks 
the brain and shocks the heart, throw it away. Let us be honest. 


Mr. Ingersoll’s Reply to Prof. Swing. 


Prof. Swing has made a few remarks on this subject, and I say the 
spirit he has exhibited has been as gentle and as swect as the perfume of a 
flower. He was too good a man to stay in the Presbyterian church, 
He was a rose among thistles, He was a dove among vultures—and they 
hunted him out, and I am glad he came out. [ tell all the churches to 
drive all such men out, and when he comes I want him to state just 
what he thinks. I want him to tell the people of Chicago whether he 
believes the Bible is inspired in any sense except that in which Shaks- 
peare was inspired. Honor bright I tell you that all the sweet and 
beautiful things in the Bible would not make one play of Shakspeare, all 
the philosophy in the world would not make one scene in Hamlet, all 
the beauties of the Bible would nct make one scene in the Midsummer 
Night’s Dream; all the beautiful things about woman in the Bible 
would not begin to create such a character as Perdita or Imogene or 
Miranda. Not one. 

I want him to tell whether he believes the Bible was inspired in any 
other way than Shakspeare was inspired. I want him to pick out 
something as beautiful and tender as Burns’ poem to Mary in Heaven. 
I want him to tell whether he believes the story about the bears eating 
up children; whether that is inspired. I want him to tell whether he 
considers that a poem or not. I want to know if the same God made 
those hears that devoured the children because they laughed at an old 
man out of hair. I want to know ifthe same God that did that is the 
same God who said, “ Suffer little children to come unto me, for such is 
the kingdom of Heaven.’’ I want him to answer it, and answer it 
fairly. ThatisallI ask. I want just the fair thing. 

Now, sometimes Mr. Swing talks as though he believed the Bible, 
and then he talks to me as though he didn’t believe the Bible. The day 
he made this sermon I think he did, just a little, believe it. He is like 
the man that passed a ten dollar counterfeit bill. He was arrested, and 
his father went to see himand said, “John, how could you commit such 

oy acrime? How could you bring my gray hairs in sorrow to the grave?” 
“Well,” he says, ‘father, I’ll tell you. I got this bill and some days I 
thought it was bad and some days I thought it was good, and one day, 
when [ thought it was good I passed it.” 

I want it distinctly understood that I have the greatest respect for 
Prof. Swing, but I want him to tell whether the 109th psalm is inspired. 


SKULLS AND REPLIES. 135 


Y want him to tell whether the passages I shall afterward read in this 
book are inspired. That is what I want. 


Ingersoll’s Reply to Brooke Herford, D.D. 


Then there is another gentleman here. His name is Herford. He 
says it is not fair to apply the test of truth to the Bible—I don’t think 
it is myself. He says although Moses upheld slavery, that he improved 
it. They were not quite as bad asthey were before, and Heaven justified 
slavery at that time. Do you believe that God ever turned the arms of 
children into chains of slavery? Do you believe that God ever said toa 
man: ‘“ You can’t have your wife unless you will be a slave! You 
can not have your children unless you will lose your liberty; and un- 
less you are willing to throw them from your heart forever, you 
can not be free?” I want Mr. Herford to state whether he loves 
such a God. Be honor bright about it. Don’t begin to talk about 
civilization, or what the church has done or will do. Just walk right 
up to the rack and say whether you love and worship a God that estab- 
lished slavery. Honest! And love and worship a God that would 
allow a little babe to be torn from the breast of its mother and sold into 
slavery. Now tell it fair, Mr. Herford, I want you to tell the ladies in 
your congregation that you believe in a God that allowed women to be 
given to the soldiers. Tell them that, and then if you say it was not the 
God of Moses, then don’t praise Moses any more. Don’t doit. Answer 
these questions. 


The Ingersoll Gattling Gun Turned on Dr. Ryder. 


Then here is another gentleman, Mr. Ryder; the Rev. Mr. Ryder, and 
he says that Calvinism is rejected by a majority of Christendom. He is 
mistaken. There is what they call the Evangelical Alliance. They met 
in this country in 1875 or 1876, and there were present representatives of 
all the evangelical churches in the world, and they adopted a creed, and 
that creed is that man is totally depraved. That creed is that there is an 
eternal, universal Hell, and that every man that does not believe in a cer- 
tain way is bound to be damned forever, and that there is only one way 
to be saved, and that is by faith, and by faith alone; and they would not 
allow anybody to be represented there that did not believe that, and they 
would not allow a Unitarian there, and would not have allowed Dr. 
Ryder there, because he takes away from the Christian world the conso- 
lation naturally arising from the belief in Hell. ‘ 

Dr. Ryder is mistaken. All the orthodox religion of the day is Cal- 
vinism. It believes in the fallof man. It believes in the atonement. 
It believes in the eternity of Hell, and it believes in salvation by faith; 
that is to say, by credulity. 


136 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


That is what they believe, and he is mistaken; and J] want to tell Dr. 
Ryder to-day, if there is a God, and He wrote the Old Testament, there — 
is a Hell. The God that wrote the Old Testament will have a Hell. 
And I want to tell Dr. Ryder another thing, that the Bible teaches an 
eternity of punishment. want to tell him that the Bible upholds the 
doctrine of Hell. I want to tell him that if there is no Hell, somebody 
ought to have said so, and Jesus Christ himself should not have said: 
“T will at the last day say: ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting 
fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’”? If there was not such a 
place, Christ would not have said: ‘ Depart from me, ye cursed, and 
these shall go hence into everlasting fire.’ And if you, Dr. Ryder, are 
depending for salvation on the God that wrote the Old enh you 
will inevitably be eternally damned. 

There is no hope for you. It is just as bad to deny Hell as it is to 
deny Heaven. It is just as much blasphemy to deny the devil as to 
deny God, according to the orthodox creed. He admits that the Jews 
were polygamists, but, he says, how was it they finally quit it? I can 
tell you—the soil was so poor they couldn’t afford it. Prof. Swing says 
the Bible is a poem. Dr. Ryder says it is a picture. The Garden of 
Eden is pictorial; a pictorial snake and a pictorial woman, I suppose, 
and a pictorial man, and maybe it was a pictorial sin. And only a 
pictorial atonement. 


Ingersoll’s Reply to Rabbi Bien. 


Then there is another gentleman, and he a rabbi, a Rabbi Bien, or 
Bean, or whatever his name is, and he comes to the defense of the Great: 
Law-giver. There was another rabbi who attacked me in Cincinnati, 
and I couldn’t help but think of the old saying, that a man got off when 
he said the tallest man he ever knew, his name was Short. And the 
fattest man he ever saw, his name was Lean. And it is only necessary 
for me to add that this rabbi in Cincinnati was Wise. 

The rabbi here, I will not answer him, and I will tell you why. Be. 
cause he has taken himself outside of a!l the limits of a gentleman; 
because he has taken it upon himself to traduce American women in 
language the beastliest I ever read; and any man who says that the 
American women are not just as good women as any God can make, 
and pick his mud to-day, is an unapprecialive barbarian. : 

I will let him alone because he denounced all the men in this country, 
all the members of Congress, all the members of the Senate, and all the 
judges upon the Bench; in his lecture he denounced them as thieves 
and robbers. That won’t do. I want to remind him that in this country 
the Jews were first admitted to the privileges of citizens; that in this 
country they were first given all their rights, and I am as much in favor 


' SKULIS AND REHPLIES. 137 


of their having their rights as [ am in favor of having my own. But 
when a rabbi so far forgets himself as to traduce the women and men of 
this country, I pronounce him a vulgar falsifier, and jet him alone. 

Strange, that nearly every man that has answered me, has answered 
me mostly on thesameside. Strange, that nearly every man that thought 
himself called upon to defend the Bible was one who did not believe in 
it himself. Isn’t it strange? They are like some suspected people, 
always anxious to show their marriage certificate. They want at least 
to convince the world that they are not as bad as I am. 

Now, I want to read you just one or two things, and then I am going 
to let you go. I want to see if I have said such awful things, and 
whether I have got any scripture to stand by me. I will only read two 
or three verses. Does the Bible teach man to enslave his brother? If 
it does, it is not the word of God, unless God is a slaveholder. 

Moreover, all the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them 
shall ye buy of their families which are with you, which they beget in your land, and 
they shall be your possession. Ye shalltake them as an inheritance for your children 
after you to inheritthem. Theyshall be your bondsmen forever. (Old Testament.) 

Upon the limbs of unborn babes this fiendish God put the chains of 
slavery. I hate him. 

Both thy bondmen and bondwomen shall be of the heathen round about thee, and 
them shall ye buy, bondmen and bondwomen. 

Now let us read what the New Testament has. I could read a great 
deal more, but that is enough. 

Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters, pECOraine, to the flesh in fear 
and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as untu Christ. 

This is putting the dirty thief that steals your labor on an equality 
with God. 


Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle 
but also to the froward. 

For this is thankworthy. if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering 
wrongfully. 

The idea of a man on account of conscience toward God stealing 
another man, or allowing him nothing but lashes on his back as legal- 
tender for labor performed. 

Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all 
honor, that the name of God and His doctrine be not blasphemed. 

How can you blaspheme the name of God by asserting your independ- 
ence? How can you blaspheme the name of a God by striking fetters 
from the limbs of men? I wish some of your answers would tell you 
that. ‘“ And they that have believing masters let them not despise them.” 
That is to say, a good Christian could own another believer in Jesus 
Christ; could own a woman and her children, and could sell the child 
away from its mother. That is a sweet belief. O, hypocrisy! 


133 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


Let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather do them service 
because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. 


Oh, what slush! Here is what they tell the poor slave, so that he 
will serve the man that stole his wife and children from him: 

For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. 
Having food and raiment let us be therewith content. 

Don’t you think that it would do just as well to preach that to the 
thieving man as to the suffering slave? I think so. Then this same 
Bible teaches witchcraft, that spirits go into the bodies of the man, and 
pigs; and that God himself made a trade with the devil, and the devil 
traded him off—a man for a certain number of swine, and the devil lost 
money because the hogs ran right down into the sea. He got a corner 
on that deal. 

Now let us see how they believed in the rights of children: 

Ifa man have a stubborn and arebellious son which will not obey the voice of his 
father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not 
harken unto them, then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring 
him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place. And they shall say 
unto the elders of his city, This, our son, is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey 
our voice, heisa glutton anda drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him 
with stones, that he die, so shalt thou put evil away. 

That is a very good way to raise children. Here is the story of Jeph- 
thah. He went oft and he asked the Lord to let him whip some people, 
and he told the Lord if He would let him whip them, he would sacrifice 
to the Lord the first thing that met him on his return; and the first thing 
that met him was his own beautiful daughter, and he sacrified her. Is 
there a sadder story in all the history of the world than that? What 
do you think of a man that would sacrifice his own daughter? What do 
you think of a God that would receive that sacrifice? Now, then, they 
come to women in this blessed gospel, and let us see what the gospel 
says about women. Then you ought all to go to church, girls, next 


Sunday and hear it.. ‘“‘ Let the woman learn in silence with all subjec- . 


tion; suffer not woman to think nor usurp authority over man, for Adam 
was formed first, not Eve.”’ 

Don’t you see? 

“ Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the 
transgession. Notwithstanding all this she shall be saved in child- 
bearing if she continues in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.” 
(Thatis Mr. Timothy.) ‘‘ But I would have you know that the head of 
every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head 
of Christ is God.” 

I suppose that every old maid is acephalous. 

‘“For a man indeed ought not to cover head, forasmuch as he is the 
image and glory of God; but the woman isthe glory of man. For the 
man is not of the woman, but woman of the man. Neither was the man 


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SKULLS AND REPLIES. 139 


created for the woman, but the woman for the man. Wives, submit 
yourselves unto your own husband as unto the Lord, for the husband is 
the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the Church.” 

Do you hear that! You didn’t know how much we were above you. 
When you go back to the Old Testament, to the great law-giver, you find 
that the woman has to ask forgiveness for having bornea child. If it was 
a boy, thirty-three days she was unclean; if it was a girl sixty-six. Nice 
Jaws! Good laws! If there is a pure thing in this world, if there is a 
picture of perfect purity, it is a mother with her child in her arms. 
Yes, I think more of a good woman and achild than I do of all the gods 
I have ever heard these people tell about. Just think of this: 


When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy God hath 
delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, and seest among 
the captive a beautiful woman and hast a desire unto her that thou wouldst have her 
to thy wife, then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her 
head, and pare her nails. 

Wherefore, ye must needs be subject not only for love, but for conscience sake, and 
for this cause pay ye tribute, for they are God’s ministers, 

I despise this wretched doctrine. Wherever the sword of rebellion is 
drawn in favor of the right, I amarebel. I suppose Alexander, czar 
of Russia, was put there by the order of God, was he? Iam sorry he 
was not removed by the nihilist that shot at him the other day. 

I tell you in a country like that, where there are hundreds of girls not 16 
years of age prisoners in Siberia, simply for giving their ideas about 
liberty, and we telegraphed to that country congratulating that wretch 
that he was not killed, my heart goes into the prison, my heart goes with 
the poor girl working as a miner in the mines, crawling on her hands 
and knees getting the precious ore out of the mines, and my sympathies 
go with her, and my symphathies cluster around the point of the dagger. 

Does the Bible describe a God of mercy? Let me read you a verse or 
two. 

I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh. Thy 
foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies. 

And the tongue of thy dogs in the same. 

And the Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little; 
thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee. 

But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a 
mighty destruction, until they be destroyed. 

And He ghall deliver their kings unto thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their 
name from under Heaven; then shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou 
have destroyed them. 


I can see what he had her nails pared for. Does the Bible teach 
polygamy ? 

The Rev. Dr. Newman, consul general to all the world—had a discus- 
sion with Elder Heber or Kimball, or some such wretch in Utah— 


140 MISTAKES OF INGHRSOLL. 


whether the Bible sustains polygamy, and the Mormons have printed 
that discussion as a campaign document. Read the order of Moses in 
the 31st chapter of Numbers. A great many chapters I dare not read to 
you. They are too filthy. I leave all that to the clergy. Read the 31st 
chapter of Exodus, the 31st chapter of Deuteronomy, the life of Abra- 
ham, and the life of David, and the life of Solomon, and then tell-‘me 
that the Bible does not uphold polygamy and concubinage! 

Let them answer. Then I said that the Bible upheld tyranny. Let 
me read you a little: ‘Let every soul be subject to the higher powers— 
the powers that be are ordained of God.’’ 

George III. was king by the grace of God, and when our fathers rose 
in rebellion, according to this doctrine, they rose against the power of 
God; and if they did they were successful. 

And so it goes on telling of all the cities that were destroyed, and of 
the great-hearted men, that they dashed their brains out, and all the 
little babes, and all the sweet women that they killed and plundered— 
all in the name of a most merciful God. Well, think of it! The Old 


Testament is filled with anathemas, and with curses, and with words of 


revenge, and jealousy, and hatred, and meanness, and brutality. 

Have I read enough to show that what I said isso? I think I have. 
I wish I had time to read to you. further of what the dear old fathers of 
the church: said about wonan—wait a minute, and I will read you a 
little. We have got them running. 

St. Augustine in his 22d book says: “A woman ought to serve her 
husband as unto God, affinning that woman ought to be braced and 
bridled betiimes, if she aspire to any dominion, alleging that dangerous 
and perilous it is to suffer her to precede, although it be in temporal 
and corporeal things. How can woman be in the image of God, seeing 
she is subject to man, and hath no authority to teach, neither to be a 
witness, neither to judge, much less to rule or bear the rod of empire.” 

Oh, he is a good one. These are the very words of Augustine. Let 
me read some more. ‘“ Woman shall be subject unto man as unto 
Christ.” That is St. Augustine, and this sentence of Augustine ought to 
be noted of all women, for in it he plainly affirms that women are all the 
more subject to man. And now, St. Ambrose, he isa good boy. “ Adam 
was deceived by Eve—called Heva—and not Heva by Adam, and there- 
fore just it is that woman receive and acknowledge him for governor 
whom she called sin, lest that again she slip and fall with womanly 
facility.” Don’t you see that woman has sinned once, and man never? If 
you give woman an opportunity, she will sin again, whereas if you give it 
to man, who never, never, never betrayed his trust in the world, nothing 
bad can happen. ‘“ Let women be subject to their own husbands as unto 
the Lord, for man is the head of woman, and Christ is the head of the 


| SKULLS AND REPLIBS. 14d 


congregation.” They are all real good men, all of them. “It is not 
permitted to woman to speak; let her be in silence; as the law said: 
unto thy husband shalt thou ever be, and he shall bear dominion over 
thee.”’ 

So St. Chrysostom. He is another good man. ‘ Woman,” he says, 
“was put under the power of man, and man was pronounced lord over 
her; that she should obey man, that the head should not follow the feet. 
False priests do commonly deceive women, because they are easily per- 
suaded to any opinion, especially if it be again given, and because they 
lack prudence and right reason to judge the things that be spoken; 
which should not be the nature of those that are appointed to govern 
others. For they should be constant, stable, prudent, and doing every- 
thing with discretion and reason: which virtues woman can not have 
in equality with man.” : 

I tell you women are more prudent than men. [ tell you, as a rule, 
women are more truthful then men. [ tell you that women are more 
faithful than men—ten times as faithful as man. I never saw a man 
pursue his wife into the very ditch and dust of degradation and take her 
in his arms. I never saw a man stand at the shore where she had been 
morally wrecked, waiting for the waves to bring back even her corpse to 
his arms; but I have.seen woman doit. I have seen woman with her 
white arms lift man from the mire of degradation, and hold him to her 
bosom as though he were an angel. 

And these men thought woman not fit to be held as pure in the sight 
of God as man. I never saw a man that pretended that he didn’t love a 
woman; that pretended that he loved God better than he did a woman, 
that he didn’t look hateful to me, hateful and unclean. I could read 
you twenty others, but I haven’t time to doit. They are all to the same 
effect exactly. They hate woman, and say man is as much above her as 
God is above raan. I am a believer in absolute equality. I am a be- 
liever in absolute liberty between man and wife. I believe in liberty, 
and I say, ‘Oh, liberty, float not forever in the far horizon—remain not 
forever in the dream of the enthusiast, the philanthropist and poet; bu 
come and make thy home among the children of men.” 

I know not what discoveries, what inventions, what thoughts may 
leap from the brain of the world. I know not what garments of glory 
may be woven by the years tocome. I can not dream of the victories 
to be won upon the field of thought; but I do know that, coming down 
the infinite sea of the future, there will never touch this “ bank and shoal 
of time” a richer gift, a rarer blessing than liberty for man, woman and 

child. 

I never addressed a more magnificent audience in my life, and I thank 
you, I thank you a thousand times over. 


142 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 


Ingersoll’s Catechism and Bible Class. 


Nothing is more gratifying than to see ideas that were received with 
scorn, flourishing in the sunshine of approval. Only a few weeks ago: 
I stated that the Bible was not inspired; that Moses was mistaken, that 
the “flood” was a foolish myth; that the Tower of Bavel existed only 
in credulity; that God did not create the universe from nothing, that 
He did not start the first woman with a rib; that He never upheld 
slavery; that He was not a polygamist; that He did not kill people for 
making hair-oil: that He did not order His Generals to kill the dimpled 
babes ; that He did not allow the roses of love and the violets of modesty 
to be trodden under the brutal feet of lust; that the Hebrew language 
was written without vowels; that the Bible was composed of many 
books written by unknown men; that all translations differed from each. 
other, and that this book had filled the world with agony and crime. 

At that time I had not the remotest idea that the most learned clergy-. 
men in Chicago would substantially agree with me—in public. I have 
read the replies of the Rev. Robert Collyer, Dr. Thomas, Rabbi Kohler, 
Rev. Brooke Herford, Prof. Swing, and Dr. Ryder, and will now ask 
them a few questions, answering them in their own words: 


First, Rev. RoBERT COLLYER: Question. What is your opinion of — 


the Bible? Answer. “It is asplendid book. It makes the noblest type 
of Catholics and the meanest bigots. Through this book men give their 
hearts for good to God, or for evil to the Devil. The best argument for 
the intrinsic greatness of the book is that it can touch such wide 
extremes, and seem to maintain us in the most unparalleled cruelty, as 
well as the most tender mercy; that it can inspire purity like that of 
the great saints and afford arguments in favor of polygamy. The Bible 
is the text book of ironclad Calvinism and sunny Universalism. - It 
makes the Quaker quiet and the Millerite crazy. It inspired the Union 
soldier to live and grandly-die for the right, and Stonewall Jackson to. 
live nobly and die grandly for the wrong.” 

Q. But, Mr. Collyer, do you really think that a book with as many 
passages in favor of wrong as right, is inspired? A. “I look upon the 
Old Testament as a rotting tree. When it falls it will fertilize a bank 
of violets.” 

Q. Do you believe that God upheld slavery and polygamy? Do 
you believe that He ordered the killing of babes and the violation of 
maidens? A. ‘There is three-fold inspiration in the Bible, the first. 
peerless and perfect, the Word,of God to man; the second simply and 
purely human, and then below this again, there is an inspiration born 
of an evil heart, ruthless and savage there and then as anything well 
can be. A three-fold inspiration, of Heaven first, then of the Earth, and: 


a 
ae eS nn 


SKULLS AND REPLIES. 143 


then of Hell, all in the same book, all sometimes in the same chapter, 
and then, besides, a great many things that need no inspiration.” 

Q. Then, after all, you do not pretend that the Scriptures are really 
inspired? A. “The Scriptures make no such claim for themselves as 
the Church makes for them. They leave me free to say this is false, or 
this is true. The truth even within the Bible dies and lives, makes on 
this side and loses on that.” 

Q. What do you say to the last verse in the Bible, where a curse is 
threatened to any man who takes from or adds to the book? A. “I 
have but one answer to this question, and it is: Let who will have writ- 
ten this, I can not for an instant believe that it was writien by a divine 
inspiration. Such dogmas and threats as these are not of God, but of 
man, and not of any man of a free spirit and heart eager for the truth, 
but a narrow man who would cripple and confine the human soul in 
its quest after the whole truth of God, and back those who have done 
the shameful things in the name of the Most High.” 

Q. Do you not regard such talk as “slang?” 

(Supposed) Answer. If an infidel had said that the writer of Revela- 
tions was narrow and bigoted, I might have denounced his discourse 
as “slang,” but I think that Unitarian ministers can do so with the 
greatest propriety. 

Q. Do you believe in the storles of the Bible, about Jael, and the sun 
standing still, and the walls falling at the blowing of horns? A. “They 
may be legends, myths, poems, or what they will, but they are not the 
Word of God. So I say again, it was not the God and Father of us all 
who inspired the woman to drive that nail crashing through the king’s 
temple after she had given him that bowl of milk and bid him sleep in 
safety, but a very mean Devil of hatred and revenge that I should 
hardly expect to find in a squaw on the plains. It was not the ram’s 
horns and the shouting before which the walls fell flat. If they went 
down at all, it was through good solid pounding. And not for an in- 
stant did the steady sun stand still or let his pianet stand still while bar- 
barian fought barbarian. He kept just the time then he keeps now. 
They might believe it who made the record. I donot. And since the 
whole Christian world might believe it, still we do not who gather in 
this church. <A free and reasonable mind stands right in our way. 
Newton might believe it as a Christian and disbelieve it as a philoso- 
pher. Westand then with the philosopher against the Christian, for 
we must believe what is true to us in the last test, and these things are 
not true.” 

SrconD, Rev. Dr. THomas. Question. What is your opinion of the 
Old Testament? Answer. ‘My opinion is that it is not one book, but 
many—thirty-nine books bound up in one. The date and authorship 


e 


144 MISTAKHS OF INGERSOLL. 


of most of these books are wholly unknown. The Hebrews wrote with- 
out vowels and without dividing the letters into syllables, words or sen- 
tences. The books were gathered up by Ezra. At that time only two 
of the Jewish tribes remained. All progress had ceased. In gathering 
up the sacred book, copyists exercised great liberty in making changes 
and additions.” 

Q. Yes, we know all that, but‘is the Old Testament inspired? A. 
“ There may be the inspiration of art, of poetry, or oratory; of patriot- 
ism—and there are such inspirations. There are moments when great 
truths and principles come to men. They seek the man and not the 
man them.” 

Q. Yes, we all admit that, but is the Bible inspired? A. “ But still 
I know of no way to convince any one of spirit and inspiration and 
God only as His reason may take hold of these things.” 

Q. Do you think the Olid Testament true? A. ‘Thestory of Eden 
may be an allegory; the history of the children of Israel may have mis- 
takes.” 

Q. Must inspiration claim infallibility? A. ‘Itis a mistake to say 
that if you believe one part of the Bible you must believe all. Some of 
the thirty-nine books may be inspired, others not; or there may ba 
degrees of inspiration.” 

Q. Do you believe that God commanded the soldiers to kill the chil- 
dren and the married women and save for themselves the maidens, as 
recorded in Numbers 81:2? Do you believe that God upheld slavery? 
Do you believe that God upheld polygamy? A. “The Bible may be 
wrong in some statements. God and right can not be wrong. We must 
not exalt the Bible above God. It may be that we have claimed too 
much for the Bible, and thereby given not a little occasion for such men 
as Mr. Ingersoll to appear at the other extreme, denying too much.” 

Q. What then shall be done? A. “We must take a middle ground. 
It is not necessary to believe that the bears devoured the forty-two chil- 
dren, nor that Jonah was swallowed by the whale.” e 

TuirD, Rev. Dr. KoHuEeR. Question. Whatis your opinion about 
the Old Testament? Answer. “I will not make futile attempts of arti- 
ficially interpreting the letter of the Bible so as to make it reflect the 
philosophical, moral and scientific views of our time. The Bible is a 
sacred record of humanity’s childhood.” 

Q. Are you an orthodox Christian? A. “No. Orthodoxy, with its 
face turned backward to a ruined temple or a dead Messiah, is fast 
becoming like Lot’s wife, a pillar of salt.” 

Q. Do you really believe the Old Testament was inspired? A. “TI 
greatly acknowledge our indebtedness to men like Yoltaire and Thomas 
Paine, whose bold denial and cutting wit were so instrumental in bring- 


SKULLS AND REPLIES. 145 


ing about this giorious era of freedom, so congenial and blissful, par 
ticularly to the long-abused Jewish race.” 

Q. Do you believe in the inspiration of the Bible? A. “Of course 
there is a destructive axe needed to strike down the old building in order 
to make room for the grander new. The divine origin claimed by the 
Hebrews for their national literature was claimed by all nations for their 
old records and laws as preserved by the priesthood. As Moses, the 
Hebrew law-giver, is represented as having received the law from God on 
the holy mountain, sois Zoroaster, the Persian, Manu, the Hindoo, Minos, 
the Cretan, Lycurgus, the Spartan, and Numa, the Roman.” 

Q. Do you believe all the stories in the Bible? A. ‘“ All that can 
and must be said against them is that they have been too long retained 
around the arms and limbs of grown-up manhood to check the spiritual 
progress of religion; that by Jewishritualism and Christian dogmatism 
they became fetters unto the soul, turning the light of Heaven into a 
misty haze to blind the eye, and even into a Hell fire of fanaticism to 
consume souls.” 

Q. Is the Bible inspired? A. “True, the Bible is not free from 
errors, nor is any work of man and time. It abounds in childish views 
and offensive matters. I trust thatit will, in a time not far off, be pre- 
sented for common use in families, schools, synagogues and churches, 
in a refined shape, cleansed from all dross and chaff, and stumbling- 
blocks on which the scoffer delights to dwell.” 

Fourts, Rev. Mr. Herrorp. Question. Isthe Bibletrue? Answer, 
“Ingersoll is very fond of saying ‘The question is not, is the Bible 
inspired, but is it true? That sounds very plausible, but you know as x 
applied to any ancient book it is simply nonsense.” 

Q. Do you think the stories in the Bible exaggerated? A. “I dare 
say the numbers are immensely exaggerated.” 

Q. Do you think that God upheld polygamy? A. “The truth of 
which simply is, that four thousand years ago polygamy existed among 
the Jews, as everywhere else on earth then, and even their prophets did 
not come to the idea of its being wrong. But what is there to be indig- 
nant about in that?” 

Q. And so you really wonder why any man should be indignant at 
the idea that God upheld and sanctioned that beastliness called polyg- 
amy? <A. ‘ What is there to be indignant about in that?’ 

Firru, Pror. Swine. Question. What is your idea of the Bible? 
Answer. “I think it a poem.” 

Srxru, Rev. Dr. Ryper. Question. And what is your idea of the 
sacred Scr iptures? Answer. ‘Like other nations, the Hebrews had 
their patriotic, descriptive, didactic and lyrical poems in the same 
varieties as other nations; but with them, unlike other nations, what. 


20 


146 INGEHERSOLD’S FUNERAL ORATION 


ever may be the form of their poetry, it always possesses the character- 
istic of religion.” 

*Q. Isuppose you fully appreciate the religious characteristics of the 
Song of Solomon? No answer. 

Q. Does the Bible uphold polygamy? A. “The law of Moses did 
not forbid it, but contained many provisions against its worst abuses, 
and such as were intended to restrict it within narrow limits.” 

Q. So you think God corrected some of the worst abuses of polyg- 
amy, but preserved the institution itself? 

I might question many others, but have concluded not to consider 
those as members of my Bible class who deal in calumnies and epithets. 
From the so-called “replies”? of such ministers it appears that, while 
Christianity changes the heart, it does not improve the manners, and 
that one can get into Heaven in the next world without having been a 
gentieman in this. 

It is difficult for me to express the deep and thrilling satisfaction I 
have experienced in reading the admissions of the clergy of Chicago. 
Surely the battle of intellectual liberty is almost won when ministers 


admit that the Bible is filled with ignorant and cruel mistakes; that’ 


each man has the right to think for himself, and that it is not necessary 
to believe the Scriptures in order to be saved. . 

From the bottom of my heart I congratulate my pupils on thé 
advance they have made, and hope soon to meet them on the serene 
heights of perfect freedom. 


INGERSOLL AT HIS BROTHER’S GRAVE 


The funeral of Hon. Ebon C. Ingersoll, brother of Col. Robert G. Inger- 
soll, of Illinois, took place at his residence in Washington, D. C., June 
2, 1879. The ceremonies were extremely simple, consisting merely of 
viewing the remains by relatives and friends, and a funeral oration by 
Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, brother of the deceased. A large number of 
distinguished gentlemen were present, including Secretary Sherman, 
Assistant Secretary Hawley, Senators Blaine, Vourhent Paddock, Alli- 


son, Logan, Hon. Thomas Henderson, Gov. Pound, Hon. Wm. M. Mor- ~ 


rison, Gen. Jeffreys, Gen. Williams, Col. James Fishback, and others. 
The pall-bearers were Senators Blaine, Voorhees, David Davis, Paddock 
and Allison, Col. Ward, H. Lamon, Hon. Jeremiah Walson of Indiana, 
and Hon. Thomas A. Boyd of Tllinois. 


a 
eo 


AT HIS BROTHER'S GRAVE. 147 


Soon after Mr. Ingersoll began to read his eloquent characterization 
of the dead, his eyes filled with tears. He tried to hide them behind 
his eye-glasses, but he could not do it, and finally he bowed his head 
upon the dead man’s coffin in uncontrolable grief. It was after some 
delay and the greatest efforts at seJf-mastery, that Col. Ingersoll was 
able to finish reading his address, which was as follows: 


Colonel Ingersoll’s F'uneral Oration. 


My Frirnps: I am going to do that which the dead often promised 
he would dofor me. ‘The loved and loving brother, husband, father, 
friend, died where manhood’s morning almost touches noon, and while 
the shadows still were falling toward the West. He had not passed on 
life’s highway the stone that marks the highest point, but being weary 
for a moment he laid down by the wayside, and, using his burden for a 
pillow, fell into that dreamless- sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. 
While yet in love with life and raptured with the world, he passed to 
silence and pathetic dust. Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the hap- 
piest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing 
every sail, to dash against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the 
billows roar a sunken ship. For, whether in mid-sea or among the 
breakers of the farther shore, a wreck must mark at last the end of 
each and all. And every life, no matter if its every hour is rich with 
love and every moment jeweled with a joy, will, at its close, become a 
tragedy, as sad, and deep, and dark as can be woven of the warp and 


‘woof of mystery and death. This brave and tender man in every storm 


of life was oak and rock, but in the sunshine he was vine and flower. 
He was the friend of all heroic souls. He climbed the heights and left 
all superstitions far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawning 
of a grander day. He loved the beautiful and was with color, form 
and music touched totears. He sided with the weak, and with a willing 
hand gave alms ; with loyal heart and with the purest hand he faith- 
fully discharged all public trusts. He was a worshipper of liberty and 
a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have heard him quote 
the words : ‘For justice all place a temple and all season summer.” 
He believed that happiness was the only good, reason the only torch, 
justice the only worshipper, humanity the only religion, and love the 
riest, 

z He added to the sum of human joy, and were every one for whom 
he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave he would 
sleep to-night beneath a wilderness of flowers. Life is a narrow vale 
between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain 
to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the 
echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying 
dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope sees a star 
and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing. He who sleeps here, 
when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, 
whispered with his latest breath, “‘ I am better now.” Let us believe, 
in spite of doubts and dogmas and tears and fears that these dear words 
are true of all the countless dead. And now, to you who have been 
chosen from among the many men he loved to do the last sad office for 
the dead, we give his sacred dust. Speech can not contain our love. 
There was—there is—no gentler, stronger, manlier man. 


148 INGERSOLL’S FUNERAL ORATION. 


BEECHER’S COMMENTS. 


Henry Ward Beecher’s Comments on Mr. Ingersoll’s Faith, and 
Funeral Discourse. 


“The root element of faith is in the imagination. The tendency of 
our age, or in certain lines of it, is a rising tendency among the educated 
to give to the evidence of the physical senses not only greater weight 
than comes with the imagination, but to deny to the imagination all use 
except that of producing pleasure. To a certain extent we are indebted 
for this to the perversion of religious views. The .ascetic school ban- 
ished the imagination from religion and made it a mere minion of 
pleasure and turned the thoughts of men to what are called weightier 
things. Weare told in the serious words of the ascetic teachers that 
life is too important to trifle away. They have stripped off the wings 
of the imagination to make quills to write their dull treatises withal. 
There is also danger from the scientific or materialistic tendencies ot 
the age, the votaries of which hold that all things must be proven by 
tangible evidence—that the soul is but matter. But taking the mate- 
rialistic view that the soul is but matter, it is matter so different from or- 
dinary matter that itis to be judged by entirely different laws. But 
without taking that ground and adhering as I do to the ground that it 
is aspiritual matter, the necessity is much stronger for applying the true 
principle in dealing with its consideration. 

“There isa growing tendency towards materialism in the German 
mind, and this has long been the tendency of the French mind. It has 
made inroads into the sturdy old English mind, and it has with ten 
thousand other immigrants that we could have spared come across the 
seas and gained a foothold here. But to apply to the imagination the 
same rules you apply to things that have no imagination is impolitic, 
unphilosophical and unwise. There are a great many men who say 
with Tyndall: ‘If you present God asa poem [I can accept it, but if 
you present Him as a fact I resist it; I say there is no evidence; it is not 
proven.’ There are realities which can not be proven. No formula can 
demonstrate the sentiment of honor; yet honor demonstrates itself, 
and the intellect discerns things by the aid of the imagination that 
it can not discern without it. Reasonings are no more than spider- 
webbings, 

“That which comforts must be accepted as true, although it can not be 
proven by any direct line of evidence. Take, for instance, the pictures 
of the Virgin Mary which are the objects of such veneration to devout 


BEECHER’S COMMENTS. 149 


Roman Catholics. They are not really the Virgin Mary; they don’t 
even look like her; but they are a representation of the tenderness of 
the mother towards the child, and that tenderness is a reality. I, too, 
hang the pictures in my parlor and in my bedroom, and I, too, am a 
worshipper of the Virgin. I worship the tender, loving spirit of God 
out of which theology has cheated us. Put that in theology and you 
would not want any pictorial illustration. So as to ministering angels; 
I never thought of an angel except with wings. I never saw an angel 
painted with wings that it did not look like an old hen to me. So with 
Ministering angels. The moment you apply to them all that belongs to 
them that moment you destroy them. 

“A French philosopher once said very truly: ‘ Everybody believes in 
God until you attempt to prove his existence.’ Take the existence of the 
soul in heaven—that is a mere question of reason without evidence such 
as belongs to regulated forms of matter—and it is full of obscurities 
But let it hang in the realm of imagination and it is not only the product 
of the imagination of one man, but of all the nations through the growth 
of time. It is the imagination that has been reaped and threshed and 
winnowed and grown into the very bread of life. It is not any poem 
or notion; it is the work, the final work of the imagination of the 
human race, speaking all languages, under all governments; it is the 
result to which men come—that death doesn’t stop human life; it goes 
on unending. 

“ Mr. Ingersoll is a man of great merit and power and he has made 
himself perhaps as widely known as almost any other man in this gen- 
eration by his contemning of, I will not say religion, but of those views 
of religion handed down to us by the teachers of Christianity. He has 
great power of the imagination—a flaming wit—and has said a great 
many things, not wise, but by which wise men may profit. He has 
uttered a great many criticisms on the subject of Christianity which are 
just criticisms, yet taking his views of religion as a whole, they lack 
completeness; it is a special plea, a fault-finding plea, which sees only 
one side. Now, while I accord to him the extremest liberty of discus- 
sion and disclaim any right to interfere with this liberty, we have a right 
to whatever of instruction there may be, and [ think he can instruct us 
by his latest utterance. He has lost a brother dearly beloved, a good 
man who lived happily with his family and was respected by the com- 
munity, and at that brother’s funeral, Mr. Ingersoll made one of the 
most exquisite, yet one of the most sad and mournful, sermons that I 
ever read. 

_ “ Wasever anything uttered by the lips of man more pathetic? But we 
have not only a hope, we have the certainty—we know that if our 


150 INGHRSOLD’S FUNHRAL ORATION. 


earthy tabernacle is lost we havea building not made with hands eternal 
in the heavens. To us the sweet voice comes under burdens, under sor- 
rows, in pain, in persecution, in the prison dungeon—the voice of the 
spirit and the bride says come and the voice of the whole Church of 
God cries out to us ‘it is real, it is real—come;’ and when this noble 
brother of Mr. Ingersoll felt the touch of death, I don’t doubt he felt 
the touch of God the second time, and saw in the eternal world things 
which he had counted but shadows here. Even skepticism and that 
which had been provocative of skepticism in others says when it comes 
to the death of hope: ‘In spite of doubts : or dogmas, let us hope that 
there is a better world.’ ” 


ARNOLD’S COMMENTS. 


Hon. Isaac N. Arnold’s Comments on Ingersoll’s Funeral 
Oration. 
The sad, pathetic, and almost hopeless cry of Robert G. Ingersoll 
over the grave of his brother has been widely read. It is eloquent with 
feeling, and shows that his heart is tender and affectionate; and one can 


not but sympathize with a grief which is not soothed by any hope of a 


reunion hereafter. He says, speaking of death: ‘“ Whether in mid- 
sea or among the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck must mark 
at last the end of each and all; and every life . . will at its close 


become a tragedy as sad, and deep, and dark as can be woven of the 
warp and woof of mystery and death. And Life is a narrow vale 
between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain 
to look beyond the hights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the 
echo of our wailing cry.” . 

This, then, is the despairing moan of one of the brightest infidels of 
our country—of one who is doing more to destroy faith in God and 
immortality than any other! How striking the contrast between such 
a “wreck,’? as Ingersoll calls it, and the joyous, hopeful death of a 
Christian. 

I have lately been reading an account of the last hours of Sir Walter 
Scott. As death approached this great and maemo minded Scotchman, 
he asked Lockhart to read to him. 

“What shall I read?’ said Lockhart. 

“ Need you ask ?” said Sir Walter. “There is but one Book.” And 
the words that have comforted the dying and soothed the living for 
eighteen hundred years fell gratefully upon his ear:. 


Let not your heart be troubled. In my Father’s house are many mansions. I go 
to prepare a place for you. 


ARNOLD'S COMMENTS. 161 


“ Lockhart,” were the last words of Scott, ‘‘ Lockhart, I have bu. a 
moment to speak to you; my dear, be a good man; be virtuous, be 
religious! Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to 
lie here.” 

Ingersoll sadly says over the remains of his beloved brother, “ We 
cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry;’’ and, 


speaking of his dead brother, he says: ‘ He climbed the hights, and 


left all superstition far below.” 

If such are the results of “climbing the hights;” if to climb is 
only to Jook into the black gulf of despair, to hear over the grave only 
the “echoes of our wailing cry,” who would not rather stay in the 
warm valley of faith and hope? 

I would kindly ask Ingersoll, Are not faith and hope better than 
doubt and despair? And, if so, why make it your life’s mission to 
ridicule, satirize, and destroy the faith and hope of the thousands who 
find in their religion the only refuge from the sufferings and sorrows of 
this life? Why labor to make your brother of humanity believe that 


he is but— 
The pilgrim of a day? 
Spouse of the worm and brother of the clay, 
Frail as the leaf in Autumn’s yellow bower, 
Dust in the wind, or dew upon the flower? 43 
* * * * * * * 
A child without a sire. 
Whose mortal life and transitory fire 
Light to the grave his chance-created form, 
As ocean wrecks illuminate the storm. 


And then— 
If these— 


To night and silence sink forevermore! 


The pompous teachings ye proclaim, 
Lights of the world and demi-gods of fame, 
The laurel wreath that murderer rears, 
Blood nursed and watered by the widow’s tears, 
Seems not so foul, so tainted, and so dread, 
As the daily nightshade round the skeptic’s head. 

Infidelity is indeed the ‘“‘ deadly nightshade,”’ deadly alike to happi- 
mess and to virtue. There are exceptions like Ingersoll, who have 
inherited from their Christian ancestors natures so generous that their 
sturdy virtues have resisted the deadly influence. 

But every blow this modern apostle of infidelity strikes against 
Christianity is a blow in favor of vice and/immorality. To the young 
man whose faith Ingersoll by his wit and eloquence has shaken, I would 
say, listen to his cry of despair over his dead brother, and compare it 
with the Christian’s triumphant death and joyous hope, and choose the 


truth. 


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AUDIPHONE| 


Aa NEw INVENTION 


THAT ENABLES 
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TO HEAR THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF THE TEETH, AND THE 
DEAF AND DUMB TO HEAR AND LEARN TO SPEAK, 


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A Class of Deaf Mutes Listening to Music for the First Time, by aid of the AUDIPHONE, 
(From Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Dec. 13, 1879.) 


| Invented by RICHARD S. RHODES, Chicago, Ill. 


SOLD ONLY BY | 
RHODES & McCLURE, ie 
Methodist Church Block, Chicago. ; 
18soO. | 


TON Hriaguts DEAF AND DuMB INSTI- 


TuTE, New York Crry, HEARING HER OWN VOICE FOR THE FIRST 


A Youna Lapy FROM WASHING 


TIME. 


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LAss oF Dear Mutss 1x New York Crry, Nov. 21, 1879, 


(From Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Paper.) — 


2 


EXPERIMENTS WITH THE AUDIPHONE ON A C 


M@HE AUDIPHONE,: = ~ 
GOOD NEWS FOR THE DEAF. 


An Instrument that enables the Deaf to Hear with Hase throug 
the Medium of the Teeth, and the Deaf and Dumb 
to Hear and Learn to Speak. 


INVENTED BY R. S. RHODES, CHICACO, ILLS. 


The Audiphone resembles a fan, It is made of a peculiar composi- 
tion, that, like a telephone diaphragm, gathers the faintest sounds and 
conveys them, through the medium of the teeth and 
auditory nerve, to the brain. 

When in use the instrument is strung, or bent, to 
the proper tension and its upper edge is pressed 
against the edge of the upper teeth. See Figs. 1, 2,3. 


| ’ 
Fig. 3. The Audiphone 


_ Fig. 1. The Audiphone Fig. 2. The Audiphone properly adjusted to the 
In its natural position; in tension; the proper upper teeth; ready for a 
used as a fan. position for hearing. use, (Side view.) 


With ordinarily good upper teeth and auditory nerve the Audiphone 
gives good satisfaction. With artificial teeth, if they fit firmly, it gives 
good results. 

- Care should be taken, in all cases, to adjust the instrument properly. 

Persons not accustomed to hearing articulate sounds, or who, 
by the use of ear trumpets, have become accustomed to unnatural sound, 
will generally require a little practice before they get the full benefit of 
the instrument. 

In all cases the result improves as the instrument is used. Its use’ 
also improves the natural sense of hearing. 


9 THE AUDIPHONE. 


FROM PERSONS USING THE AUDIPHONE. 


The following testimony is in all respects authentic, and in every 
instance has come to Rhodes & McClure, unsolicited. The same is 
also true concerning the notices “ From the Press.”’ 


‘* | hear ordinary conversation with ease, and it is a wonder to me every time I use it, 
Sounds that I had not heard for years and had quite forgotten came back distinctly, and 
the more | use it the better I like it. ‘* ABBIE R. STEVENS, 

** Oct. 9, 1879. ‘** Salem, Mass.” 


‘** [ attend church, hear perfectly six pews from the desk, amd can not hear the minis- 
ter’s voice without the Audiphone. 1 go to lectures and concerts, and, in short, am 
alive again and a part of the world. Sometimes I think my Audiphone is bewitched, it 
works so well. * ABBIE. R. STEVENS.” 

** Dec. 13,1879. {Second Letter.] 


_ ‘* The Audiphone came O. K. By its aid I am now able to join in general conversa-— 
tion, which I have not been able to do for eighteen years. ‘““H. K. TAYLOR, 
* Nov. 21, 1879. ‘** Cleveland, O.” 


‘The ’Phone at hand; and on trial even more satisfactory than could be expected at 
first use. My wife and friends are delighted and enthusiastic overit. They are rejoiced 
that I can hear, and I am glad that it no longer requires an effort on their part to enable 
me to do so. ‘““E. C. ELY (firm, Reynolds & Ely), 

** Oct. 4, 1879. ‘* Peoria, Ills.” 


‘*rr4 South Twenty-First Street, Philadelphia, Pa., Nov. 15. 
‘* Messrs. Rhodes & McClure.—The Audiphone arrived safely, and I hasten to assure 
you of its perfect success for my hearing. In ordinary conversation I can not use it 
against the eye-teeth as it makes the voices too loud, although the Audiphone is scarcely 
drawn. I entered.into general conversation with perfect ease, last evening, for the first 
time for five or six years. A melodeon or piano I hear distinctly at great distances. 
Reading aloud is also easily heard. My family and friends are so rejoiced at my success, 
and regard the instrument in wonder. My physician is delighted with it, and thinks, as 
my deafness arose greatly from nervousness, that the Audiphone will stimulate the audi- 
tory nerve, and possibly benefit or restore my sense of hearing. The terrible strain being 
taken from my mind gives me such rest and good spirits that I almost forget my deafness. 
‘** Yours very truly, ‘““MRS. F. A. LEX.” 


‘* Messrs. Rhodes & McClure.—The Audiphone, per Adams’ Express, arrived all right, 
and my wife is delighted with 1t. She has been to the theater and other public entertain- 


ments, and for the first time in twelve years was she able to hear all that was said. 
** Dec. g, 1879. ‘HH. A. BARRY, 26 Post Office Ave,, Baltimore, Md.” 


‘*My Audiphone is the wonder of the day. It helps me wonderfully in conversation, 
‘*B. H. MULFORD, ESQ., Montrose, Pa.” 


‘** My deafness is of long standing, having originated from an attack of scarlet fever 
more than thirty years ago. The hearing in each ear is defective and in one almost com- 
pletely impaired. The Audiphone forwarded has been tested in ordinary conversation 
and also by attendance upon the opera and perfectly subserves the purposes for which it 
was intended. My hearing when using the instrument is as acute as though no infirmity 
existed and the effect of the use of the instrument has appreciably toned up and improved 
the auditory organs—so much so as to have attracted the attention of my tamily. 

‘*T have exhibited the instrument to.several friends afflicted with deafness. Among 
the parties who have determined to use yourinvention are Judge McCorkle, of California; — 
Gen. Boynton, of the Cincinnati Gazette ; and General Markham, a resident of this city. 
All of these gentlemen are afflicted with defective hearing. 

‘ **G. W, CARTER, 
** Nov. 28, 1879. Washington, D. C. 


‘*T find that the more accustomed I become to the use of my Audiphone the better 
results do I obtain, and having been quite deaf for over thirty years I can assure you it is 
a great gratification to be able to attend any place where public speaking is going on and 
hear all that is uttered by the speakers—a pleasure that has been denied me all that time, 

Nov. 26, 1879. ‘\ JOHN B. SCOTT, New York.” 


PERSONAL TESTIMONY. 3 


** It answers the purpose admirably. Has created quite a sensation among my friends, 
“* Sept. 21, 1879. “KE. F. TEST, Claim Ageut, U. P. R. R., ‘* Omaha, Neb.’ 4 


““VYour Audiphone to hand. The lady (my sister) has tried it and finds she can hear 
now an ordinary conversation which she can not do without it. I would not part with it for 
ten times its cost. ‘““W. W. EVANS, 

** Sept., 1879. ‘* Grant Locomotive Works, Paterson, N. J.” 


“TI procured an Audiphone yesterday and can already hear quite well an ordinary con- 
versation, ‘“HENRY MILNES, Cold Water, Mich.” 


‘** Music clear in any part ofthe room. To say that I am gratified would only express 
moderately how I feel. “G. H. PAINE, Freemont, Neb., Sept. 30, 1879.” 


‘The Audiphone is a great benefit to me. Without it music is a confused murmur 
of sounds; with it I can hear the different parts as well as I ever could. 
**:Dec. 6, 1879. ‘** ABBIE WEST, Canton, Ills.” 


‘** I am satisfied from experiments which I have witnessed that, excepting instances in 
which the Auditory nerve ts totally paralyzed, all the deaf may, by its help, be enabled to 
_ hear and intelligently converse. “REV.S. H. WELLER, D.D., Morrison, IIls.”’ 


““T have been deaf for thirty years, but can now hear distinctly with the Audiphone. 
“JOHN ATKINSON, 
** Sept. 19, 1879- **Sec., Treas. and Sup’t Racine (Wis.) Gaslight Co.’’ 


**St. Joseph’s Institute, 
** Fordham, (near New York City,) Dec. 4, 1879. 

‘On Tuesday, the 2d inst., the Audiphone was tested by a number of pupils of the 
Institute with the following results : 

** Cecilia Lynch, aged 16, is supposed to have been deaf from birth. It has, however, 
been remarked that she could hear very loud sounds and could sometimes distinguish her 
own name if spoken in a Joud tone by a person quite close to her. She says also that 
she sometimes hears the strains of the organ in the chapel, but so far from deriving any 
pleasure from the music the confused sounds are very dizagreeabie to her. By the use of 
the Audiphone she not only heard distinctly but could repeat almost every word spoken 
to her. As she has been instructed in articulation and reads easily from the lips 1t was 
thought that this knowledge assisted her. One of the persons present then stood behind 
her and repeated several words which she readily imitated, thus proving, beyond a doubt, 
the value of the Audiphone. 

‘** Annie Toohey, aged ro years, became deaf at the age of three from spinal meningitis. 
It was supposed that her hearing was completely destroyed, but on applying the Audiphone 
to her teeth she heard and distinctly repeated after Mr. Rhodes several of the letters of the 
alphabet. This little girl has begun to make considerable progress in articulation, but up 
to the day on which she tried the Audiphone the vowel E£ appeared to be an insurmount- 
able difficulty to her ; by the aid of the Audiphone she repeated it with perfect distinctness. 

** Another little girl, Sarah Flemming, also heard the voice of Mr. Rhodes and others 
who spoke toher. As in the preceding case, her deafness was caused by spinal menin- 
gitis, by which she was attacked when five years of age. By the aid of the Audiphone 
‘she was able to repeat several sounds. 

** Several others tested the Audiphone with more or less success, 

“MARY B. MORGAN, Principal.”’ 


In a later letter (Dec. 12) Miss Morgan states: ‘‘ No doubt the Audiphone will be of 
great service to our pupils.” 
** Western and Atlantic R. Co. Office Treasurer, 
** Atlanta, Ga., Nov. 18, 1879. 
** Messrs. Rhodes & McClure.—Will you please send me a Conversational Audiphone 
by Express C. O. D., the price of which is $10, as per advertisement. 
‘* Very respectfully, 
““W. C. MERRILL, Sec. and Treas. W. & A. R. Co.” 


“* Please send me another Conversational Audiphone by Express.”—(Telegram from 
W.C. Merrill, Nov. 24, 1879.) 

‘** Please send me Concert Audiphone by Express.’’—(Telegram from same, Dec. 9.) 

‘*/lease send me Conversational Audiphone by Express.’’—(Telegram from same, De- 
cember 12.) ['.B.—Mr. Merrill is not an agent. He purchased these Audiphones, per 
telegram, for friends who had seen his instrument. ] 


-~*R.S Rhodes, Esq.—Dear Sir—I avail myself of this opportunity to tender to you my 
best wishes for the success of your philanthropic invention. 


** Yours, SS AIM BS ih BARCLAY, ‘ 
** Dec. 9, 1879- ‘‘Sec, Penn. Institute for Deaf and Dumb, Philadelphia.”’ 


4 THE AUDIPHONE. a 


FROM THE PRESS, 


‘* We have seen and tested the Audiphone, to which we feel under obligations be— 
cause alone of the magical and blessed boon it has proved to several loved personal friends. 
In some cases the relief has been instantaneous, magical, and, to the patients, overwhelm— 
ing. We have seen friends burst into glad tears and sink quietly to the floor under the 
glad stroke of gratitude and joy.”—W. W. C. Advocate (from the Editor, Dr. Edwards). 

‘* Each note of the musician and each tone of the singer come as clearly and distinctly 
as they did before my sense of hearing was impaired.”’—Hon. Foseph Medill, Editor 
Chicago Trtbune. : ; yi 

‘* A man deafer than Edison has shown, by the Audiphone, that people born deaf or 
made deaf by disease. can actually be made to hear to a greater or less extent.’’—Detroit 
Free Press. Nov. 25, 1879. ; . 


‘* It is valuable, and will materially help in the education of children like those at the 


Deaf and Dumb Asylum, and will doubtless prove an effective aid to the many people of — 


impaired hearing. Its discovery therefore is a cause for congratulation, and its attractive 
appearance and convenience for use, so different from the old-fashioned ear trumpet, will 
serve to bring it largely into use.” —Hart/ford (Conn.) Courant. 


‘* Deaf mutes were able to hear the music of the piano when at a considerable distance 
from the instrument.’”’—WV, Y. Observer's Report of Private Exhibition. 


‘* This wonderful invention promises to be one of great value,’’—/ilustrated N. Y- 
Christian Weekly. 


‘*Mr. Rhodes has shown that people born deaf, or made deaf by disease, can actually 
be made to hear.”—New York World. 


‘* Tests were satisfactorily applied to several members of a class of deaf mutes who were 
present, and the pleasure at hearing sound evinced by one young girl was most interest- 
ing and touching. A new organ, ora new use for an organ,1s discovered, if not created.’” 
—From Fenny Funes Letter in Baltimore American. Dec. 1, 1879. 


‘* Mr. James Samuelson exhibited, in the Lecture Hall of the Free Library, Liverpool, 
England, an instrument designed as an aid to the deaf—the Audiphone -which he met 
with during his late visit to America. . . . The general result appeared to be that, 
provided the auditory nerve itself was in a healthy condition, the Audiphone was of great 
assistance to deaf persons.’’—Liverpool Daily Post. Dec. 2, 1879. ms 


‘** No spectacles will give a blind man sight, but the new instrument does give a deaf 
man hearing.” —Tkhe /nutertor. Sept. 8, 1879. 


‘‘ We have seen persons hear sound in this way (with Audiphone) who never knew 
what sound was.’’—A dvance. 


‘** Catharine Lewis, a young lady, also an inmate of the Jnstitution for the Deaf and 
Dumb at Philadelphia, ordinarily was able to hear a very loud voice. With the Audi— 
phone she could hear and repeat words uttered in a conversational key.”—Philadelphia 
Record’s Report of Exhibition in Philadelphia. Dec. 9, 1879. 


‘* Not a few of the interested auditors were enabled to follow the proceedings by means 
of Audiphones, and all such cheerfully added their testimony to the great amelioration of 
what was, in some, cases, almost total deafness of many years’ standing.’’—Philadelphia 
Times’ Report of Philadelphian Exhibition. Dec. 9, 1879. 

‘* At last the deaf are madeto hear. Failing to hear through the front door of the 


ear the Audiphone carries it to the back.’’—Cozcord (NV. H.) Daily Monitor. Novem- 
ber 25, 1879. 


‘* The deaf-mutes were enabled to distinguish the difference between sounds, and en- 
joyed the singing of one of the ladies.”—Vew York Tribune’s Report of Exhibition. 
Nov. 22, 1870- 

‘* The mutes tested the Audiphone. A young man who had been deaf from infancy 
heard words spoken in the tone of ordinary conversation.””—NMew York Sun’s Report of 
, Exhibition. . Nov. 22, 1879. 


‘*In this invention Mr. Rhodes has proved himself a benefactor.”"— The Standard. 
Sept, 25, 1879. . 


ee 
‘A very valuable Invention.”’—Zvening (Milwaukee) Wisconsin, Editor, $. F. 


Cramer. Oct. 1, 1879. 


** The fact of hearing through the medium of the teeth has long been known, but it 
has remained for the inventor of the Audiphone to utilize this fact for the benefit of the 
afflicted.”—New Yorh Star. Nov. 22, 1879. 


‘** A class of deaf-mutes from the Washington Heights Asylum were present, and the 
tests with them were quite satisfactory. Some heard the notes of the piano for the first 
_ ume.”—New York Evangelist’s Report of New Vork Exhibition. Nov. 27, 1879. 


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